I freaked out. We hope to retire in Nicaragua. This scared me. Didn’t scare my husband though. 😂Thank you for clarifying about having prepared ahead of time, lawyers, trusted contacts, etc. This makes more sense. 😊
Yes, for sure, I can see why it would be scary. And it's a good warning of what "not to do." But it was definitely a combination of "really extreme isolation" combined with a perfect storm of happenstance and health crisis all at once. Good to plan ahead and be prepared for the worst, but also good to understand that this is an extreme circumstance that could happen (or something like it) anywhere, and easily be worse. And important to view it as "trivial to protect against." For all the expats living here now, I've never heard of a single one so much as batting an eye at the story. Everyone feels badly for them, but no one gets the impression that it presents any surprise risks that we didn't already know about and protect against automatically.
As someone very close to Allison’s story, I can’t help but clarify the amount raised in the go fund me, doesn’t even come close to touching the amount of money this situation cost them. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and options on ways others can avoid this, and doing it in a tasteful none judgemental way towards the family.
That's good to know. I assume a lot of those losses are from the loss of ability to work during that time? 2+ months out of work isn't any fun and I assume Canadian companies don't tend to pay when these kinds of things happen?
Mr. Miller, thanks for the advice, very well presented. It's all fine and dandy; first thing to do is hire a lawyer, but there are people who go to Managua for a vacation. They book their hotel online, they book their rental car online, pick it up at the Managua airport. Who would think to hire a lawyer going to Nicaragua for the first time? Then unfortunately maybe they get into an accident and find themselves in a situation similar to the subject of your video (Allison). So, your advice for first timers might be something like, "First time in Nicaragua? Do not ... repeat .. if it is your first visit, under any circumstances DO NOT rent a car in Nicaragua? And DO NOT rent a car until you have visited enough and until you get to know (by hook or by crook) a reliable lawyer! Anyone have any thoughts about this? Thanks.
I agree, and we say this constantly. Don't drive in new countries on vacation in general, and definitely don't in NIcaragua. You are safe, but because so many people come here, commit crimes, and flee and because the countries that they tend to flee to protect criminals from prosecution here Nicaragua has little recourse other than to make sure flight risks don't take off. It's sad that they don't have better means of holding foreigners accountable, but it is what it is. If you live here, a weekend in jail is a minor thing. If it is your vacation, it is a big thing. Don't take the risk. I've got dozens of videos where we've said that renting a car while on vacation or visiting is unnecessarily reckless and foolish when, in most cases, getting a driver that comes with their own car is about the same price or, normally, actually cheaper! Most people will never have a problem, but driving is unnecessarily stressful and risky for a tourist. We have an amazing infrastructure for people to travel around without driving, and extremely cheap private drivers. Most people driving themselves (on vacation) are just ignoring everyones' advice and trying to think as if Nicaragua is North America (same problem that leads people to talk to real estate agents.) I don't know anyone here who recommends driving when on vacation. Every UA-camr I know has a consistent message (including me for sure)... keep life simple, let locals drive you around when visiting Nicaragua. Save the money, save the headache, enjoy your vacation.
One of the things I like best about your channel is that the information and advice you provide does not apply only to Nicaragua, but will be valuable to people looking to expatriate to many of the countries in the region.
Scott, I was born in NIcaragua and I won't even drive there because I know if I get in an accident I might end up loosing. so yeah get a driver or drive super super carefully.
I do drive here, but I'm super careful, have lots of resources ready in case something happens, and am VERY aware that I could be spending time in a holding cell while things are resolved. I lean away from recommending driving. But I don't completely avoid it.
I am a Nicaraguan living in the USA. I was involved in a similar situation in 2008 and the first thing I did was call my lawyer then I call the red cross and the police. The first thing is to do is to call the lawyer that you have a relationship with.
Having a trusted lawyer would have solved everything for them. I live in Escamequita which is south of SJDS, but I’ve become part of the local community. I’m amazed at the number of expats who isolate and insulate themselves and only spend time with other expats. It is easier to be taken advantage of in the greater SJDS area, but once again, a trusted attorney totally mitigates that issue.
Had this happen to my mother. A local tried to by pass on her left without knowing she was about to make a left turn (despite being on the turning lane). Guy took our left mirror with him, and fell off his bike and ran into a wall where broke his ribs. Everyone in the town seeing that we were white, and had a nice car (for Nica Standards) began surrounding us and blaming us. Police arrested my mom and held her at the police station. We brought a lawyer in hopes of communicating with the injured but were told that the amount we offered for this not to go to court was not enough and he wanted more money despite being at fault lol. Luckily we have family that is well connected there, and the way I remember it, we passed the phone over to the head of the police station where he spoke to the person who was his superior (and now much higher rank I guess) back during his days in what I presume was the police academy, and once that conversation was over my mother was let go. Feel sorry for the guy, he could have just taken the money, we heard that when it went to court he obviously lost and got nothing. The whole endeavor lasted less than 5 hours, but I didn’t know it could get this bad for non-citizens.
Well yeah, it can get pretty bad. This could happen anywhere if the person in jail requests "indefinite hold" on proceedings to attempt to negotiate. At any time they could have enacted the legal system and presumably 1) bet let out to stay at home 2) gone to court and won and 3) paid nothing in the end. But they were so afraid of that (for good reasons) that they avoided it and he was held "forever" at their own request. Even in Canada if you "request" being kept in jail while things are happening, they might let you.
Great video - and much needed. Thanks for presenting the facts while showing sensitivity and understanding for the individuals involved. My own personal opinion is the tendency of many expats (especially North Americans) to cloister themselves in places full of people just like themselves. By default, you don't get as much 'education' about the everyday situation if you spend your time behind your gates and walls, expat doctors, expat lawyers and expats health facilities. I lived in Germany off an on for years, and when I finally got residency for a job I had, even I got blind-sided by a side of Germany I was unfamiliar with! My son was having problems in school and social services got involved. He was assigned a counselor, etc. I was ordered into the Social Services office one day and sternly told that if I (!) could not fix my son's behavior problems, the German state would take my son and place him into foster care! When I protested that I was single parent who adopted my son and was doing his best (as a single parent), I was nastily lectured about how Germany would have never permitted a single person to adopt a child, and that bad American policies didn't matter to the Germans. At that point I had spent a cumulative decade plus in Germany and was painfully unaware of the policies of Social Services. It was a shock, but it was THEIR laws.
Not unlike a "Lecture" my wife got from some OB/GYNs last night when she was telling them about the birth of our eldest daughter. They talked about how it's a miracle that she was alive and that so many basic Nicaragua healthcare guidelines were broken by the American doctors (in the US, no laws to protect patients there) and that they couldn't believe that people so unprofessional and incapable were allowed to be called doctors or practice healthcare there. They'd be in jail if they acted that way in Nicaragua. A big different, but there's a lot of eye opening cultural differences. People are often shocked by things like German child care laws or Nicaragua health care laws and how much they view places like the US and Canada as criminally negligent as to the care of their populations.
Thank you for your helpful feedback regarding this situation. It gives me a lot of insight into a possible future in Nicaragua as well as current transactions in the States.
I don't think it's really so scary. Yes, a day or two in a holding cell is unpleasant for sure. But we're talking about a really major incident, someone is dead. And unlike the family here, you know who to call, what to do, what is expected, have ties to the country, and would be willing to go to court to prove your innocence.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog 1 hour in a jail is way too much for me. Honestly the thought of it makes me want to crawl out of my skin. There are many things good about Nicaragua. This is not one of them. This is one thing that would not happen (as a routine thing) in the USA.
Thank you for being an attentive and replying to the messages you are teaching me a lot although I personally do not have an attorney my uncle has had one locally in Nicaragua Managua for 10 years and in such a problem I would probably call him first he would then call the lawyer and get him to the scene as he speaks more fluent Spanish as I do as I speak broke in Spanish but we'll be taking a class to catch up on my spanish-speaking skills when I arrive next month
For sure, if you have a lawyer, just let them know when you are arriving and be prepared to get them on WhatsApp and hand them to aduana to discuss whatever is needed. Can help a lot.
Scott - Good video. Thanks for taking the time to watch Allison's story and break it down. She was very emotional and all over the place. I do not know why she came to Nicaragua with a serious health problem. It appears she made one bad decision after another. We don't PLAN to fail, we fail to PLAN. We should all have a personal Doctor and Lawyer. **Financial advisor and CPA if applicable. My lawyer is from SJDS, and is excellent. He is connected to everyone. I found both an English speaking Doctor and Dentist in Rivas who are fantastic. The Dentist has the latest equipment. The doctor's have adequate equipment, knowledge and spend unlimited time with you. They charge 10% of my American health care providers. The road from Rivas to San Juan could be safer. I will not drive at night. A wrong move and you can drive of a cliff. Two and three persons riding a small moto - wearing no helmet, and lights not working is common. Dogs and animals on the road is a danger. I always drive SLOW SLOW SLOW! SJDS is no better, there are four foot deep drainage lines along side some roads with no guard rails. Traveling to some area's require a dirt road on a mountain. A wrong turn you will fall 100's of feet. I been living in SJDS almost four years. From my boots on the ground experience and world travel, I have not found the expat community any worse or better than others. It is a mix of bad and good. Retired military, others on fixed income, remote workers, hedge fund babies and business owners. Single men, women, couples and married expats with families. I have noticed a larger presence of back packers and poverty. SJDS is also a favorite place of many seven figure bankers, investors and high end individuals/expats. I have met a few while traveling in front of the plane. Tens of millions of private and equity money has been invested in a near by condo and private 5 star resort geared towards the wealthy expat. I do not know if it is the success they anticipated.
Well I THINK she chose Nicaragua because often coming here can cure that specific health problem. Or not really cure, but cause it to "go away". Under normal circumstances, it vanishes. She went three years here without it. Under normal stress situations that might trigger it to come back, like it did, would be mitigated by just returning to North America where that specific illness exists. If it was a normal illness, far better to be treated here. Healthcare in Nicaragua makes the US and Canada look like witch doctors. But as it's specifically a US/Canadian food supply illness, not much awareness here. So this was a super specific set of circumstances that triggered her getting something that they thought had gone away, while also making her able to travel, but needing to be here to manage her husband's situation. Really, if you had her health problems, you'd want to move somewhere like Nicaragua too. Now she's back in Canada and likely having to live with lots of medications and flareups, but until this happened here, she was healthy.
Thanks for the thorough coverage of their unfortunate incident and its takeaways for the expat community. As for me I'll be driving a moto there, if I even drive at all.
Imagine how much cheaper a driver would have been than this! Their financial losses from this one event easily would have paid for a decade of a private driver alone!
@@bodyloverz30 I ride a motorcycle in Nicaragua all the time, I find it wonderful. What I don’t do is drive at night if I can help it. Hostels are cheaper than stressing out riding in the dark for me anyway.
So i'm going to hypothesize so take this response as that - but it's super illegal to drive without insurance here and they check a lot. If he had not had insurance he'd likely have been found guilty instantly or at least quickly, no need to hold him in jail he'd get moved to prison. so i'm quite confident that he had insurance. now insurance could in theory help with some payments, but i'd assume only if they proceed with the legal process. not if they just casually negotiate with the family - otherwise you'd fake accidents and rob the insurance companies. they need a formal judgement. i think had they proceeded insurance might have assisted to some degree. but had they proceeded i doubt they'd have needed insurance at all. he wasn't at fault and so no need to pay. so i think the answer is: he had it but it wasn't helpful. the problem was that they were tricked and in a way that cut off resources like insurance from being able to help
Such a fantastic video, my first priority when I visit somewhere is trying not to walk around like an entitled tourist with no interest in people. My wife and I visited Managua and Leon (with a few helpful tips from Scott) and we made friends everywhere, coffee shops at the big market, different eateries, government workers, etc. Folks there were so chatty as soon as you acknowledge them and we left with several new phone numbers for next time.
Excellent analysis of the situation! I followed Allison's journey and felt bad for everything they experienced. The GoFundMe campaign turned me off but to each their own I suppose.
I always have a negative reaction to those things, as I think a lot of people do. But her family had over $100K (I assume Canadian) in expenses from this, mostly medical. The GFM is really about covering their medical issues, not the jail issues. While that was significant, it wasn't even remotely (as I understand it) the financial issue. The massive medical emergency was crippling and can happen anytime, anywhere, to anyone. It's not just medical issues in Nicaragua, but they have to continue dealing with them (obviously) in Canada too. And months of lost working income as their sole bread winner wasn't able to work. So EASY for expenditures to become really huge, really fast.
I am guessing that a lawyer was used for, buying the house,car, residency ect. But most of the people who get scammed in SJDS use a “one stop shop” for all these services, the “real estate agency”. They purposely keep people in the dark so that the people will come back the next time they need a car, assistance in paying bills, or even a roll of toilet paper. Most of these people who get molested by these “real estate” agents continue to promote and recommend their abusers to enter their friends lives as well. I think this is the situation that happened here when she reached out to a “friend” for help.
Yes, that's the "pyramid" we talk about. The people getting scammed side with the scammers because otherwise, they have to admit that they've been scammed AND deal with living next door to scammers, having to find alternative services, etc. So you end up with these large communities of people often working the scam together at a community level. It gets super dangerous.
What a shame, what is going on in SJDS. I was born in Nicaragua and I like to visit SJDS for a day or two (when I go to Nica), but I wouldn’t live there. I hope Allison and her family overcome this incident soon. 🙏🏻
Yeah, I like to visit, but I'd definitely not live there either. And we considered it back in 2019, very glad that we dug in deeper as to where we wanted to be.
Really enjoyed hearing your take on this story as well as all the setting and character descriptions, that really does help to understood it all unfolded. I agree wholeheartedly that none of this was their fault, they were on the bottom of a bottom feeding situation that they had limited control over. However, I stand by my original comment on your other video that Alison and her husbands decision to pack up their small innocent children and move to essentially a third world county they knew very little about (her words) just because they could get more real estate opportunities (her words) was a very reckless decision. The situation they found themselves in was not their fault but they struggled in the situation because they did not do the due diligence they should of done prior to moving there. And I only use the term reckless because they brought their children with them. It is absolutely mind blowing to me how any mother would think that was a good idea. If she wanted her kids to be cultured, she could of taken them on vacations .
Coming to the "third world" is great for kids, kids are safer here than in North America. But you are right, it was incredibly reckless to move anywhere, third world isn't the issue, and live in extreme isolation without doing the basic adult things one would need to live even at home in Canada safely alone, let alone with children. If she had moved to the USA, it would have been even more dangerous for them living in that way. If anything, it being super safe Nicaragua / third world allowed them to live more or less safely in a manner that really isn't safe anywhere. What's weird is.. what "real estate opportunities" did they get? Maybe I'm missing something there. But like, they bought in the worst place, in the worst way (at a good time), but they didn't have a lawyer, so likely they paid double or triple the actual value of the place (that's standard for people buying like that.) Like yes, things are cheap in Nicaragua, but cheap isn't the same as a deal. It's only a deal if you can buy low and sell high. But I'm guessing that they did the opposite. WIthout a lawyer, everyone gets scammed on price, and often on the deal, too. It's not so much due diligence before moving. We don't know what she did there. I mean we can guess and likely you are correct. But we can't really know. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, they might have done a ton of due diligence. Nicaragua is one of the best possible places to raise kids. Super safe, solid rule of law, good future, some of the best women's rights and protections in the world. Hard to get better to raise kids. But, to your point, they ended up in the one place you are least likely to go in the country if you do your research and once they arrived, it appears they did nothing that would reflect having done good research before. But we're just guessing. I did a LOT of research and lived all over the world including many first world countries and chose Nicaragua for my kids with more diligence than most anyone has ever done. But due diligence ahead of time isn't at all the same as "basic adulting" in the moment. And it appears that for three years they were just kind of "hoping for the best". I know it is tempting to get into a "feels like we are on vacation" mindset and forget that you have to live an actual life, too. But, who knows. And who knows if now that they are back in Canada anything has changed. Are they still at the same risks? She's said multiple times how scared she is, in Canada. If they treat Canada the way that they treat Nicaragua (blind, no idea, no resources, just floating through) then they are definitely in more danger there. It's mostly Canadians in SJDS making things risky, and Canadians are constantly reporting moving to Nicaragua out of fear for their safety back home. So it's easy to imagine moving back to Canada might given them family and specific medical treatment, but be even harder without the easy straightforward laws and such.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog all fair and valid points. For the record I wasn’t dogging Nicaragua at all, I have no doubt it’s safer than NA, especially today but to leave their home base where they had familial support with mom having a very serious medical condition and how quickly they moved was reckless. I watched the videos when she was in Canada and they decided they wanted to move, she was talking about where they wanted to go and it was so casual and off the cuff. The way she talked about it sounded like it was a very quick decision and based solely off real estate. At least that’s the way I interpreted it. It’s tragic if they have returned to Canada and are still not safe, I had no idea that was a thing there. When she kept saying she wasn’t comfortable sharing things still due to safety I honestly assumed she meant people from Nicaragua would come for her.
@1mama402 people coming from Nicaragua to get her in Canada would suggest they are insane. lol. That's so far from reality. She expects some disgruntled fake lawyer trying to scam someone for $2000 to spend $50,000 and risk canadian or american jail to silence someone exposing a scam lawyer?
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog well the will likely own that house for a long time, take a loss, on the bright side is that there is a sucker born every minute.
This a very prominent problem, in this country specially in the department of Rivas where some people are very stupid and decide to drive while drunk, and it's very hard to control at night where there are almost no police officers, and I think traffic lights cannot be possible since it's the panamerican highway
Okay so I have a very dumb question when you're at the Honduras Nicaragua border they make you get car insurance for Nicaragua wouldn't the insurance have covered that?
I liked your thoughtful description of that particular incident in Nicaragua, but I found it a little too wordy. Thak you for sharing your points of view. FSLN
scott buddy. i acknowledge that you know a lot about many things. ive been trying to get my wife out of nicaragua for 2 years now. it has not happened. nicaragua may be fun for you with money, but its beyond horrible for the poor women trapped there.
In what way is she trapped? If you are married you have the right to be here, why not live here and both of you have a good life? Nicaragua doesn't trap people, if that's what she's telling you, there is something else going on. If you mean the US won't accept her, that's a totally different matter and you should be upset with the US and its treatment of both you and her (two very different situations, both things to be upset about.) There's no "bad life" for women trapped here. That's a common thing said to convince people to pay for people to move somewhere. LIfe is hard, jobs are few (thanks to the US embargos) but there is absolutely no one trapped here, and with even a tiny amount of outside income someone can live extremely well. Assuming all of your problems come from being American, and every American I know that marries Nicaraguans gets the uniform bad treatment from the US so this seems likely, you have three great options to make both of your lives better: 1) You move to Nicaragua and you and she together get the dream life. Why avoid the best outcome? Nicaragua has the lowest cost of living, best remote work rights and taxes in the world, great weather, incredible safety, and more freedoms than any North American can fathom. It's a win/win by a long shot. Yes, you might need to change your job as we don't know what it is now, but as an American (we guess) your ability to do so is effectively unlimited. This gives both of you the best lives from a value for money / quality of life perspective possible. She's "trapped" in paradise, presumably without a job, and you are feeling trapped in the rat race. But this is easily solved. Since you are married, you get "automatic" residency, too, as a bonus. 2) Both of you move to a third party country. This could be nearby, like Costa Rica, or farther away, like Bolivia. Or really shake things up and go to Vietnam. Even being limited to the overlap of your two passportsd, you have many great options if for some reason you are both unwilling to live in NIcaragua. 3) You live apart and just visit each other. You can support her remotely from the US or Canada FAR better than you can support her living with you in either country, Europe, CR or others. A single nice dinner per month in the US is roughly the equilvalent to a base salary in Nicaragua. You can support her so trivially remotely that, while being apart sucks, if your goal is to make sure she has no worries and can live the life in NIcaragua you can easily do so. If she was to move to where you are, she would certainly cost most just to house and feed. The cost of living difference is so extreme.
It's true that life sucks for the poor. But that has nothing to do with Nicaragua. Being poor in Nicaragua is a lot better than being poor in the US. In the US, the bottom 70% can't guarantee healthcare and other basics to hit subsistence level. The poorest, most destitute Nicaragua still has more life basics than nearly all Americans. So it's all about perspective. Nicaraguans fear for their futures and plans and life goals, Americans who are similarly poor worry about freezing to death, burning in wildfires, starving or dying from simple medical problems easily treatable for a few dolars bu being denied healthcare options because no one is mandated to help them and its illegal to work around the system. Homelessness in the US is nearly a death sentence and is common, it is unpleasant but rarely scary in Nicaragua and very rare. There's nowhere in teh world where the poor don't suffer and where being poor is "good". But if you are going to be really poor, there are very few places as safe and comfortable as NIcaragua (this is specifically a thing that Nicaragua does that the US portends to hate - social services for the poor) and few as bad as the US (where it's seen as your fault and a punishment that you deserve.) But thankfully if she's married a foreigner, she has more status, more options and with the slightest money from you, the financial resources to not be poor. Remember that $200/mo is minimum wage and $800/mo is middle class. If you can send her $800/mo (that's a lot, I know, for most people) it would allow her to live a middle class life and to do so without getting a job herself! Being unemployed and being middle class is epic. $800/mo is enough for her to own her own house in a nice area, AND hire staff to take care of it.
@ScottAlanMillerVlog ok. ill put on my glasses and study this hard. i have no reason not to trust you. she has had trouble l with landladies wrongfully charging her for improvements to the houses she has rented. had to move many times. recently bed bugs infested the house. not her fault . she is super clean. she paid to get the bugs out. moved. was sued. thrown in jail and beat up a bit. shes out now. i was just with her prior to this. im in san francisco now.
She went to jail? For what? Bed bugs in the tropics? Have you seen her in jail and seen her bed bugs first hand? These aren't things people generally worry about here. YOu definitely don't go to jail lightly here. And while bed bugs can live here, they are super rare because they die in the heat. THey are a temperate zone bug, mostly. WHy are you in San Francisco instead of Nicaragua? I hate to ask this but... how much proof do you have of these things and do they result in her asking for you to send money? Because these things SOUND LIKE (obviously I have no way to know) things from the "what you can say that Americans will believe" playbook. Because Americans are used to jail as a threat and being sued for things that you aren't at fault for or bedbugs being a problem. Obviously anyone can have something go very wrong, and obviously being poor makes things must more risk and clearly someone just is unlucky. But it sounds like a lot of really unlikely circumstances combined with "American husband." When she rents, do you have a good lawyer handle the paperwork? It's a totally nominal cost as an American, like a good solid meal at McDonalds. BUt the peace of mind is huge. No reason to be worried about landladies screwing her over. You can eliminate most of these potential problems for just a few dollars and hardly any effort. KEep her safe and you can even pay the rent directly and not worry about that either.
Id love to hear more about reprisals canadian have face in their home country for considering nicaragua? As a Canadian i kind of need to know about this so i can potentially try and mitigate it
What I've been told by a Canadian here is that they were "too supportive" of Nicaragua in their online presence and that the US had asked them to intervene. They said that they were visited by the mounties about it.
I've not had that experience in the US or in Nicaragua. There are plenty of people like that in any field, but like in any field, you have to put in some effort to find the good ones that are on your side. It's like IT, the field I work in, most people claiming to be IT aren't even in the field and are actually salesmen. But a little effort finds that out fast. Lawyers are a little harder, but I've had no problem finding lots of good lawyers in Nicaragua. And even if they seem to be after your money (which would be shocking given the low cost of lawyers in Nicaragua) you need them, it's part of how the legal systems work in most countries. It's not a law that you have to have one, but it's a practical requirement that you can't get things done without one.
San Juan del Sur is definitely an enclave. I lived there for five years and know many people there. Many characters and many expats that just scrape by. Rivas is about 1 hour by chicken bus and 30 minutes by car. I only use private transport in Nicaragua (specifically for liability reasons) and never want to own a car there unless I have an employee or friend to chauffeur me around. There is no Canadian embassy in Nicaragua but they have local representatives, which in SJDS was Eunice, I am not sure if she still has that position.
There is one. Maybe it's new. Alison from ALison's Journey worked with them a few months ago. www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/nicaragua/managua.aspx?lang=eng
ua-cam.com/video/DOTJzY5cM_M/v-deo.html So it's always hard because you need time to evaluate them. So you follow some good processes and basic common sense combined with some research and testing. In her case, these were some of the things missed: 1. She asked enclave people where to find a lawyer. You never get advice from people in the enclaves unless it is enclave specific advice. No group of people could be less likely to have good information - it's specifically the group most isolated from local knowledge. 2. She used people in and resources from SJDS. This is one of the basic Nicaragua common knowledge "no nos". SJDS has easily the majority of, not just the most, but most of the scammers in the country. If you hire a lawyer from there, while a good one isn't impossible, you assume that you will get scammed. It's just how money is made there, she's the perfect example of why it's so easy to make big money there and that doing a good job doesn't get you work (no one recommended a legit lawyer, only the scam ones!) 3. She should have used a lawyer for her residency, car purchase, house purchase, and likely a few other things that we don't know about over her three years of living in the country. Those were her low risk moments to have tried out lawyers and found out, without there being a time crunch or big risk, who was going to do a good job and truly work on her behalf, who was competent, etc. She had done so many "should have a lawyer" transactions that she mentioned, yet somehow didn't even know the name of a lawyer let alone had one on retainer. They burned the natural opportunities to have hired, tested and evaluated lawyers ahead of time. 4. Even if they never had a reason to use a lawyer, as an expat you should be working to find one even just to say hi, have their number and know how to reach them when needed. Everyone should have a lawyer's contact info at the very least. 5. Normally you cultivate friends and contacts over time living somewhere. Up here in Leon, there really aren't any expats who can't find good lawyers really quickly - because everyone knows each other, everyone knows who are the trustworthy sources and can get a number or reference from someone quickly. Maybe not in minutes, but several hours for sure. Allison's family wasn't just "lawyer isolated", they were completely "community isolated." She didn't have a single trustworthy neighbor or friend with resources. Either because they had no real friends, or more likely, all of their real friends were similarly isolated to the point of having no idea about how to deal with anything. You can see from this how real estate, law, business and similar scams work so easily down in SJDS if there are whole communities of people who both don't know any lawyers and don't call any when they are needed (like when buying a house.) Allison and family didn't do anything "wrong", but they also didn't take basic proactive steps to use lawyers when they were really important, have basic contacts of resources needed for safe adulting in any country let alone a new one, to learn how things work and what is needed as residents of a new country, nor to have local friends that were both trustworthy and/or had the said resources that her family did not. I would say, and I mean this honestly, the average expat that we know up here in Leon has more resources in their first one to two WEEKS than this whole family had after more than three years. And while they called themselves poor, they were living in the richest community in the country, in a rich way. People living on a fraction of that kind of expenditure in the rest of the country have many more resources typically almost immediately.
I'm going to be making another video soon about verifying lawyers. But there is a carnet (ID card) that lawyers have to have AND there is a government website that verifies their license, that it is current and exactly what they are specialists in. Doesn't guarantee a good lawyer, but provides a REALLY firm foundation to start from.
To me sounds like the "lawyers" took her for a "ride" and completely took advantage of her being so naiive and she just trusted everyone. Yes you have to be careful driving here. Don't drive at night unless necessary, don't drive drunk, have the coverage for the insurance, and like you said most importantly know the right people. Good review on her story. I agree.
I think it's a little more than she felt that the lawyers weren't to be trusted, but she felt backed into a corner and had nowhere to turn. Of course, I'm getting this from her videos after the fact. But in her story she mentions that she was super suspicious and didn't feel good about the lawyers, but that she also felt that she had no recourse. She didn't have another lawyer to turn to, she didn't know any more of what to do, she was already screwed because they both took all of her available money AND set her up for disaster with the family before she had time to react. Naïve, yes, but at the point of dealing with the lawyers, I'm pretty confident that she knew she was in trouble and never actually trusted them. I think.
If "things in the road" weren't so much of an issue, night driving is definitely better. Although the majority of my police stops have been at night. But never a problem. Last time we all stood around and chatted for a while. Police stop in the middle of nowhere. They were so bored.
Hi Scott , I see you are a business consultant and I have some questions about my business that I been running here in Yonkers NY in the last 5 years. I don’t have a lawyer and I don’t have an accountant so I’m in a little of things that I need to clarify , let me know how can we communicate and we can talk , I am from Nicaragua , living in the states since 97.
San Juan del Sur had another case involving Eric Volz. He made mistakes that he should have known better than. The significant other is alway first to be suspected for the murder. Then he offered to help with the investigation by paying for private investigators and other expenses.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog in the 2000s. Despite what the US media, Oprah and dateline would have you believe, Eric Voltz was definitely guilty. They used his case as a smear campaign against Nicaragua, I remember he even came out in pro bush commercial back in the day. Most of that has been scrubbed from the internet now though.
At the beginning, likely a sense of safety. You are in paradise, nothing ever goes wrong. Then once it happened, confusion and panic. It was out of their ken and they weren't sure what to do. Once they were scammed, they were outside of the common workflows and no one was sure what to do then the medical emergency kicked in.
100% true lived in Nica 6 years... you dont do anything without a lawyer... sounds intimidating but its a way of life and not at the cost you think of living in N. America
The main reason they didn't go to court is because they had con artists instead of lawyers who had no interest in going to court. By the time they had a real lawyer they were in too deep and i think the chance to go to court had past.
They always had the court option. What people that I know all believe is the case is that they NEVER had a real lawyer. The second lawyer does not seem to have acted like or gotten the work done that a normal lawyer would have done right away. A better con artist, sure, but from how the story went, I think the chances that that was a real lawyer is very low. There's only so high of a chance that the people that they were talking to were even the family. Easily all of it was a charade. Never having ANY reliable person involved in the process and being unable to handle things herself, they were left "being told" everything that was going on by other people and never really knowing the truth.
Will attorneys have an “inside track” for the department they hang their shingle (local resources & regional understanding) that equates; understanding their home address is irrelevant.
In some cases, yes, but only if you find a really good one. And often those will have access to resources in other places as well. The individual departments aren't that uniquye. It isn't like the laws vary.
For some population perspective, Nicaragua is about the size of the Dallas metro. So looking for a "local" lawyer by department would be roughly the equivalent to looking for a lawyer from Denton, Carrollton, Ft. Worth, Plano, Frisco instead of just one from the Dallas area. It's just too small of a place to have the importance of locality come into play. And looking for a lawyer based in your village would be like looking for one specifically in your housing development in Dallas. Those would be similar in population size. Nicaragua isn't equivalent in population to Texas, but to Dallas, Houston OR Philadelphia. Which helps to explain why things are more unified.
Oi! I took a peak at her videos, not surprised in the least. One of her videos is of them searching for land to build their house on, not sure if that's what they did or not. They definitely did NOT venture outside of the enclave in any meaningful way. Admittedly I only perused quickly and I am quick to judge those types of folks.
I was wondering when this was coming. Im commenting before watching. Heres where i believe they made their biggest mistakes. Let add that i have never lived in Nicaragua. In fact, ive only been outside the USA for short periods of times. I think they relied too much on the none Nicaraguan people living around them. For example, the husband did not speak Spanish even though they were living there for three years and i believe they had intended to remain there. The wife spoken Spanish but i dont think she made an effort to learn the culture of the Nicaraguan people. I think the family should have been more involved with the local community. I believe the locals may have seen them as "those uppity people living a sucluded life." I also think they should have made direct contact with the other family sooner. It was obvious almost from the start something was suspicious. I also wish she had told us the numbers. Finally i point out i say yhese things after the fact and if i had been in their shoes i might have made some of the same mistakes.
I didn't mention the Spanish because learning a language can be insanely hard for some people (like me, been trying to learn Spanish since I was little and I suck) so that might be out of their control. But not knowing the customs, locals, processes, or what to do in an emergency are definitely things that they could have done to be safer. This is just one of many risks to someone who isn't familiar with the people and customs of where they live. ANd yes, I'm super confused why the numbers would be secret. That seems very odd. I can't figure out why you'd ever hide that. But maybe we are missing something. She's been clear that she's afraid for them in Canada, so who knows.
That they lived in an enclave region (SJDS) in an expat gated community I believe, they had multiple layers of "separate from the community." Even if they had made a huge effort to know customs and such, there's no way being rich North Americans in the "town for the rich foreigners who don't want to be part of Nicaragua" in a "keep everyone separate" housing development won't override any good will and appear as a desire to be separate - even if the logic was only that they got a good deal on a style of house that they liked. It's not wrong to do that, but being so oil and water with the country and culture you live in will always come with at the very least the appearance of not wanting anything to do with the locals. Even if you are just really introverted and don't want to mix with anyone, ever. Once they invoked the Canadian embassy to try to circumvent the legal processes, I think that there was no going back. Even though they were Nicaraguan residents, that takes them down a path of "we aren't part of this place" to an extreme degree. They didn't go to the embassy once things had gone wrong or because there was something to fix, because they were avoiding the legal processes (for good reasons), invoking the embassy and trying to apply foreign pressure to circumvent national sovereignty and integrity of the legal process burned any "goodwill" bridges that there might have been. Had that embassy process worked, you know the Canadian government would have used that as an opportunity to call it "corruption and ignoring the rule of law." It's so good that no one fell for that trick. I understand why they felt that they had to do it, everyone was pressuring them to do it from every side and if you don't have any cultural or historical or political knowledge of the ongoing relationships between Nicaragua and Canada, and Nicaragua's continuing fight to maintain soverignty in the face of North American pressure to capitulate, it's easy to have no real idea how inflamatory such a move would be. But that comes back to... the risks of living in a place that you haven't taken the time to learn about, know and understand to some degree.
Thanks Scott another very informative video… I’m travelling to sjds with my family for the month in Feb… we have been before for just a week about 8 years ago ( and I’m afraid the vibe will look very different) my husband wanted to get to know the town a little better ( as we are getting close to retirement) so we are staying longer( I of course because I watch you wanted to try the north) anyway when we are travelling we like to try and get immersed with the locals as much as possible but I believe this may be getting harder now as I feel we (visitors to Nica) are all being painted with the same brush rich, ignorant,exclusive travellers taking advantage of an affordable country… we want to be armed with as much knowledge of their rules and expectations but you are scaring me now about travelling to sjds…that regardless of our awareness travelling there it may not matter how prepared we are… we will be a target … i feel horrible for Allison’s family and certainly wouldn’t want to be involved in anything like this … so 1. would you say even to travel for a vacation it’s good to know who to call ( lawyer) just in case. 2. also not to rent a car to travel outside sjds to explore? 😢 Appreciate your advise and input -Always
It's a bit different than eight years ago, for sure. But not completely. Remember it's calmer now and a lot of development stopped. So it didn't boom like you might imagine. But it definitely has changed. I was first there nine years ago myself. I think the "painted with one brush" problem is mostly SJDS and a little in Granada. Up here, it's definitely not like that. In SJDS your risk is not from Nicaragua or Nicaraguans, but from expats. If you are aware that "everything is a scam", you are fine. No one is going to mug you or threaten you. They are just going to convince you to invest in a house, a business, to hire local resources, etc. It's super easy to avoid, and honestly mind blowing that so many people fall for it. But SO many people are involved that it gets hard to believe that so many people could be refusing to admit that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. Allison had a horrible situation, but it's one that absolutely no one that I've met can believe they let happen to themselves. I've never met anyone who would be at that level of risk. It was an extreme situation. 1. No, you don't need a lawyer for vacation. But you should know HOW to call a lawyer (don't use a local one in SJDS, don't rely on expats in SJDS, etc.) No different than traveling in the US or Canada or Europe. 2. Unless you really need it and have the flexibility to deal with disasters that can arise, don't rent a car. Just hire a driver. Often this is no more costly than renting a car but SO much safer and more convenient.
Why didn’t they call the Canadian embassy first thing? I don’t understand how they didn’t have ANY contact for a lawyer or any help. None of it makes sense Unless they lived in complete isolation.
Also I don’t mean to call the embassy and just ask them to get you out of it. I mean calling the embassy and asking for numbers and some sort of direction to take for the process since they clearly had no idea of what to do.
That might have been a move to make, but if they were aware of how the embassies work, rarely do the embassies have any useful information. Now, it would seem surprising given how little they were aware of other aspects of expat life that they would know that the embassy couldn't help them, but I've never heard of an embassy here having names or numbers of lawyers or similar resources. They might, but I'd be surprised. As an expat, calling my embassy is pretty close to the last thing that I'd think of. Under normal conditions they don't provide any assistance or resources and the info that they provide is often counterproductive, likely to lead you astray more than anything. Their real value is in being able to arrange airlifts in case of foreign invasion or something like that. Which is SUPER valuable, for sure. But they aren't there for day to day assistance. It's not like a tourist information center. THe embassies are primarily there for other tasks, assisting citizens in country is very, very much a side thing that they do from time to time. But you are right, given zero knowledge of anything, the embassy would have been a resource to at least talk to. I know some advertise that they can coach you on what to do in case of things like this, even if they don't get involved.
They handed me a phone and a list of lawyers years ago... while being in a neighbouring country. Took me over 2 years and a half to go back home... but I'm fluent in Spanish now...
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog hmm maybe so for the American embassies but I know that the common wealth embassies have it be Canada or Australia for example are there to help with things their citizens need in that country. I needed access to a new passport and the Canadian embassy in San Jose did that for me. I didn’t even talk to anyone in Canada. I’ve had Aussie friends in Thailand get into trouble with scammy jetski rental companies and the embassy dealt with the police and lawyers with them. I’m clearly not going to contact them and ask for travel advice/resturant recommendations and hopefully they know the guy that can give me discount on the zip line tours. I consider myself well traveled and have been living in costa rica for 6+ years full time, Now San Juan Del Sur and considering moving here full time. With the high amount of Canadian travelers coming here and maybe not well traveled or wouldn’t know what to do if a bad situation came up, absolutely I would recommend calling the embassy first thing. They are there to help you. They aren’t going to come get you out of jail/hospital but they will point you in the right direction to take if you have zero direction at all. But yes if you are going to attempt to live here. Get a good lawyers number and have the number for the embassy.
Good to know. The American embassy is definitely lean on services beyond full on emergencies. But not their job either, so I'm not upset about that. But interesting that Canada provides kind of a customer service center.
My uncle informed me when I get to the border I would have to buy car insurance to drive in Nicaragua so wouldn't that car insurance that I would be purchasing to drive in Nicaragua cover the accident
In theory, yes, that's its purpose. They had insurance too, but since they didn't move forward with the accident proceedings, the insurance couldn't kick in. In this situation, they were not at fault and so had no responsibility to pay. But they voluntarily requested not to move forward with the court case which kept them in limbo. The costs and problems that they faced didn't come from the accident. Their insurance would have covered those portions.
but that's not the issues. yes that happens. but that's like two days. he was in for 72 days because they voluntarily requested the process to be stalled.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog My lawyer said that this would be unlikely to happen. He told me that I would have to give up my passport, and jump through a few hoops but this was a case of someone being taken advantage of. He told me that he had never heard of something like this.
Well it REALLY depended on the Canadians REQUESTING to be held "indefinitely". The court granted them their request. At any time they could have pushed forward with the legal process and presumably he'd have been released.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog all most people get out of this story is that Nicaragua is a hell hole that has a broken legal system. And as we knew know that is not the case at all. I would be surprised if the Canadian government doesn’t pick up on this one and use it for propaganda to frighten people into staying in Canada.
THey already did, she mentions that in the videos that they were threatened that either they had to release to the media or the media was going to run the story without context. No one "gets" taht from this story, though. People who already decided to lie about it will repeat the titles of this story and claim that, no one who watches her videos could possibly think that there was a legal issue, she was very clear that they opted out of the legal process and it was all that they never did their proper steps. The instant the court was involved, all was solved. Someone's gotta to be super dishonest or completely ignoring the videos to get anything else from them. Which obviously people will do, but they were doing that even without these videos.
Yeah, they quickly realized, I think, that she had no grounding in reality and that they could tell her anything. So she ended up being taken off in a million wrong directions. And once it got to be that crazy, she had no idea how to tell what was reasonable (the existing judges are quite busy) or unreasonable (they country has no functional legal system and everyone arrested for anything stays in jail indefinitely with no process to get out, ever.) Makes no sense, but North Americans are bombarded with misinformation like this all the time so when people prey on you in Nicaragua, it lines up with crazy things you've been told elsewhere and you start to wonder if you might be crazy.
I don't agree that you keep repeating throughout the video that several things aren't her fault. She definitely has some responsibility in the outcome of all of this. Being ignorant to the law doesn't excuse you from the law.
That's true, you have to obey the law even if you don't know it. But what law did she break? Importantly, at no point did either Allison nor her husband, break any law. A law was broken, by the scam lawyers, because they falsified that the family was contacted. But Allison attempted to contact them through her lawyers. There are laws that she didn't know about, that seems true. But she only was surprised by them, didn't break them.
In her Part 1 video at 2:30, she states that her husband turned left while the motorcyclist was coming from the opposite direction. She glosses over the crucial fact that her husband did not have the right of way and quickly shifts to listing all the things the now-deceased motorcyclist allegedly did wrong. You also claim right off the bat that her husband wasn’t at fault, repeatedly framing him as simply involved in an accident where someone lost their life. However, even if we accept her assertion that the motorcyclist was speeding, had no lights, and had alcohol in his system, her husband shares culpability for making a left turn without the right of way. At best, this is a case of shared liability. It’s likely that this understanding is why she delayed starting the judicial process-she always had that option available. While I might have felt some sympathy for them under different circumstances, their decision to involve the Canadian embassy and produce an excessive 11-part UA-cam series about a supposedly corrupt Nicaraguan system has diminished any compassion I could have for them. They portray themselves as victims while casting our country in a negative light, filled with inaccuracies and false claims, all in an attempt to raise funds through her GoFundMe. Now that IS a SCAM. It's shameful to see a privileged white north american damage the reputation of our country, government and its people for personal gain.
Do you not drive in the US? The US is far worse in that the laws aren't even official, they can arrest you and keep you in prison, forever, even if you aren't at fault because the judge is allowed to make a new law that says you were wrong and there's no recourse. So keep some perspective. This is SO MUCH better than the US where laws and detention are arbitrary. Here, you know the law ahead of time, and it's pretty simple. I'll take a strict legal system with an overzealous lockdown holding cell weekend over being starved to death without trial for something a judge made up after the fact any day.
It's a good reason to rethink driving anywhere. There are very few places where driving and having a catastrophic accident can't result in difficult situations. Professional drivers (like taxis) are held to a higher standard in theory, but also have mechanisms for dealing with stuff that normal drivers do not. I'm a massive advocate for public transportation infrastructures. This is a universal problem that accidents are grey areas. I've been in a stationary vehicle that was hit by a driver paying no attention. But she was friends with the cops and managed to get the driver of the vehicle I was in charged even though every witness said she had just driven into us. The cops took the opportunity to get their cut, and because there weren't cameras (and even if there were) we were powerless, the cop was the biggest criminal in the situation. Stole hundreds of dollars for his friend who, in reality, had committed vehicular assault. It was clear after the fact that they worked together. And that was in rural New York. This is why I think the world needs to move to autonomous cars as quickly as possible. Real ones, not fake ones like that Tesla BS. Cars with sensors and logic and rules that govern how they operate. But we nearly have that tech and that needs to be where the future is. Human drivers need to be outlawed for everyone's safety. It's heavy vehicles in the public space.
Scott, I think this is your best video to date. Right now, I am not looking to relocate to Nicaragua specifically, but to Latin America generally, as a part-time expat in about 6 years. Your advice has very broad applicability and gives much food for thought. I know I have a tendency to be extremely naive in certain circumstances, and I am doing my best to shed decades of layers of an American centric world view and dare I say US propaganda. I am a veteran and love the USA, but every country has propaganda. I can honestly say that, until very recently, I didn't think that the USA committed human rights violations or that bribery of government officials was "a thing" in the USA. I also believed that evil people went to prison in the USA, with little exception. I am not proud of my ignorance. I am a highly educated woman with several advanced degrees. School did not fix my ignorance, but working inside US prisons shook me to my core and opened my eyes to some very painful realities. And only because of things I witnessed first hand, then researched relentlessly. You have a tremendous grasp of the nuance within Nicaraguan culture, the geopolitical history that informed dynamics between countries, and more. I have holes in my adulting and expat skills, despite having lived abroad and traveled extensively outside the USA. I am sorry for Allyson. She just didn't know. I pray that I catch on in a very meaningful way. My guardian Angel is very tired and has been run ragged with me. Again, thank you.🙏🙌
@jennifermasino9137 thank you so much. Good luck on your Latin American expat research and adventure! Keep us up to date as you hone in on a decision about where you will be headed.
As a Canadian i can assure you our government doesnt give a shit where Canadians move to.furthermore the canadian forgien affairs dept.serves Canadians anywhere in the world.Not sure what u were told Scott but Canada is just like the U.S.we are free and have no need to fear our government.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Have you watched Allison's videos? What's your takeaways on the risks of isolation and lacking connections and resources in a new community?
I watched just a bit, but it made me depressed so I stopped.
I freaked out. We hope to retire in Nicaragua. This scared me. Didn’t scare my husband though. 😂Thank you for clarifying about having prepared ahead of time, lawyers, trusted contacts, etc. This makes more sense. 😊
Yes, for sure, I can see why it would be scary. And it's a good warning of what "not to do." But it was definitely a combination of "really extreme isolation" combined with a perfect storm of happenstance and health crisis all at once. Good to plan ahead and be prepared for the worst, but also good to understand that this is an extreme circumstance that could happen (or something like it) anywhere, and easily be worse. And important to view it as "trivial to protect against." For all the expats living here now, I've never heard of a single one so much as batting an eye at the story. Everyone feels badly for them, but no one gets the impression that it presents any surprise risks that we didn't already know about and protect against automatically.
As someone very close to Allison’s story, I can’t help but clarify the amount raised in the go fund me, doesn’t even come close to touching the amount of money this situation cost them. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and options on ways others can avoid this, and doing it in a tasteful none judgemental way towards the family.
That's good to know. I assume a lot of those losses are from the loss of ability to work during that time? 2+ months out of work isn't any fun and I assume Canadian companies don't tend to pay when these kinds of things happen?
Hey, I'm watching you on Allison's latest video right now! Good additional information for sure.
Thanks!
wow, thank you!
Mr. Miller, thanks for the advice, very well presented. It's all fine and dandy; first thing to do is hire a lawyer, but there are people who go to Managua for a vacation. They book their hotel online, they book their rental car online, pick it up at the Managua airport. Who would think to hire a lawyer going to Nicaragua for the first time? Then unfortunately maybe they get into an accident and find themselves in a situation similar to the subject of your video (Allison). So, your advice for first timers might be something like, "First time in Nicaragua? Do not ... repeat .. if it is your first visit, under any circumstances DO NOT rent a car in Nicaragua? And DO NOT rent a car until you have visited enough and until you get to know (by hook or by crook) a reliable lawyer! Anyone have any thoughts about this? Thanks.
I agree, and we say this constantly. Don't drive in new countries on vacation in general, and definitely don't in NIcaragua. You are safe, but because so many people come here, commit crimes, and flee and because the countries that they tend to flee to protect criminals from prosecution here Nicaragua has little recourse other than to make sure flight risks don't take off. It's sad that they don't have better means of holding foreigners accountable, but it is what it is. If you live here, a weekend in jail is a minor thing. If it is your vacation, it is a big thing. Don't take the risk. I've got dozens of videos where we've said that renting a car while on vacation or visiting is unnecessarily reckless and foolish when, in most cases, getting a driver that comes with their own car is about the same price or, normally, actually cheaper!
Most people will never have a problem, but driving is unnecessarily stressful and risky for a tourist. We have an amazing infrastructure for people to travel around without driving, and extremely cheap private drivers. Most people driving themselves (on vacation) are just ignoring everyones' advice and trying to think as if Nicaragua is North America (same problem that leads people to talk to real estate agents.) I don't know anyone here who recommends driving when on vacation. Every UA-camr I know has a consistent message (including me for sure)... keep life simple, let locals drive you around when visiting Nicaragua. Save the money, save the headache, enjoy your vacation.
One of the things I like best about your channel is that the information and advice you provide does not apply only to Nicaragua, but will be valuable to people looking to expatriate to many of the countries in the region.
Scott, I was born in NIcaragua and I won't even drive there because I know if I get in an accident I might end up loosing. so yeah get a driver or drive super super carefully.
I do drive here, but I'm super careful, have lots of resources ready in case something happens, and am VERY aware that I could be spending time in a holding cell while things are resolved. I lean away from recommending driving. But I don't completely avoid it.
Such a heartbreaking story, but your guidance on how to navigate these challenges is crucial for expats.
Yeah, really horrible. Sometimes people just get hit with the perfect storm of things all at once.
Wow! Thanks for such a detailed comprehensive summary of the case and your recommendations for avoiding such situations.
Wonderful and very useful analysis, while respecting Allison and her families judgement, hardship and actions without judgement. ❤
I agree. Thanks Scott for all the comprehensive information.
I am a Nicaraguan living in the USA. I was involved in a similar situation in 2008 and the first thing I did was call my lawyer then I call the red cross and the police. The first thing is to do is to call the lawyer that you have a relationship with.
Having a trusted lawyer would have solved everything for them. I live in Escamequita which is south of SJDS, but I’ve become part of the local community. I’m amazed at the number of expats who isolate and insulate themselves and only spend time with other expats. It is easier to be taken advantage of in the greater SJDS area, but once again, a trusted attorney totally mitigates that issue.
for sure. any of several factors would have protected them. an attorney, integration, knowing who to call, being more proactive, etc.
Had this happen to my mother. A local tried to by pass on her left without knowing she was about to make a left turn (despite being on the turning lane).
Guy took our left mirror with him, and fell off his bike and ran into a wall where broke his ribs. Everyone in the town seeing that we were white, and had a nice car (for Nica Standards) began surrounding us and blaming us. Police arrested my mom and held her at the police station.
We brought a lawyer in hopes of communicating with the injured but were told that the amount we offered for this not to go to court was not enough and he wanted more money despite being at fault lol.
Luckily we have family that is well connected there, and the way I remember it, we passed the phone over to the head of the police station where he spoke to the person who was his superior (and now much higher rank I guess) back during his days in what I presume was the police academy, and once that conversation was over my mother was let go.
Feel sorry for the guy, he could have just taken the money, we heard that when it went to court he obviously lost and got nothing.
The whole endeavor lasted less than 5 hours, but I didn’t know it could get this bad for non-citizens.
Well yeah, it can get pretty bad. This could happen anywhere if the person in jail requests "indefinite hold" on proceedings to attempt to negotiate. At any time they could have enacted the legal system and presumably 1) bet let out to stay at home 2) gone to court and won and 3) paid nothing in the end. But they were so afraid of that (for good reasons) that they avoided it and he was held "forever" at their own request. Even in Canada if you "request" being kept in jail while things are happening, they might let you.
Great video. Thank you for the info
My pleasure.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlogI need to buy you some more coffee so we can catch up.
Sounds good to me! jaja
Good video Scott thanks for explaining, sorry for what happened to Allison.
Important anaysis, thank you for braking this down.
Great video - and much needed. Thanks for presenting the facts while showing sensitivity and understanding for the individuals involved. My own personal opinion is the tendency of many expats (especially North Americans) to cloister themselves in places full of people just like themselves. By default, you don't get as much 'education' about the everyday situation if you spend your time behind your gates and walls, expat doctors, expat lawyers and expats health facilities. I lived in Germany off an on for years, and when I finally got residency for a job I had, even I got blind-sided by a side of Germany I was unfamiliar with! My son was having problems in school and social services got involved. He was assigned a counselor, etc. I was ordered into the Social Services office one day and sternly told that if I (!) could not fix my son's behavior problems, the German state would take my son and place him into foster care! When I protested that I was single parent who adopted my son and was doing his best (as a single parent), I was nastily lectured about how Germany would have never permitted a single person to adopt a child, and that bad American policies didn't matter to the Germans. At that point I had spent a cumulative decade plus in Germany and was painfully unaware of the policies of Social Services. It was a shock, but it was THEIR laws.
Not unlike a "Lecture" my wife got from some OB/GYNs last night when she was telling them about the birth of our eldest daughter. They talked about how it's a miracle that she was alive and that so many basic Nicaragua healthcare guidelines were broken by the American doctors (in the US, no laws to protect patients there) and that they couldn't believe that people so unprofessional and incapable were allowed to be called doctors or practice healthcare there. They'd be in jail if they acted that way in Nicaragua. A big different, but there's a lot of eye opening cultural differences. People are often shocked by things like German child care laws or Nicaragua health care laws and how much they view places like the US and Canada as criminally negligent as to the care of their populations.
Thank you for your helpful feedback regarding this situation. It gives me a lot of insight into a possible future in Nicaragua as well as current transactions in the States.
I'm glad that it is helpful!
Moral of the story: don’t set your expectations of foreign attorneys outside of an enclave based upon rewatching Midnight Express.
Amen!
Good review of a bad situation.
This is the one topic that scares the hell out of me to live here.
I don't think it's really so scary. Yes, a day or two in a holding cell is unpleasant for sure. But we're talking about a really major incident, someone is dead. And unlike the family here, you know who to call, what to do, what is expected, have ties to the country, and would be willing to go to court to prove your innocence.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog 1 hour in a jail is way too much for me. Honestly the thought of it makes me want to crawl out of my skin. There are many things good about Nicaragua. This is not one of them. This is one thing that would not happen (as a routine thing) in the USA.
Thank you for being an attentive and replying to the messages you are teaching me a lot although I personally do not have an attorney my uncle has had one locally in Nicaragua Managua for 10 years and in such a problem I would probably call him first he would then call the lawyer and get him to the scene as he speaks more fluent Spanish as I do as I speak broke in Spanish but we'll be taking a class to catch up on my spanish-speaking skills when I arrive next month
For sure, if you have a lawyer, just let them know when you are arriving and be prepared to get them on WhatsApp and hand them to aduana to discuss whatever is needed. Can help a lot.
Scott - Good video. Thanks for taking the time to watch Allison's story and break it down. She was very emotional and all over the place. I do not know why she came to Nicaragua with a serious health problem. It appears she made one bad decision after another. We don't PLAN to fail, we fail to PLAN.
We should all have a personal Doctor and Lawyer. **Financial advisor and CPA if applicable. My lawyer is from SJDS, and is excellent. He is connected to everyone. I found both an English speaking Doctor and Dentist in Rivas who are fantastic. The Dentist has the latest equipment. The doctor's have adequate equipment, knowledge and spend unlimited time with you. They charge 10% of my American health care providers.
The road from Rivas to San Juan could be safer. I will not drive at night. A wrong move and you can drive of a cliff. Two and three persons riding a small moto - wearing no helmet, and lights not working is common. Dogs and animals on the road is a danger. I always drive SLOW SLOW SLOW! SJDS is no better, there are four foot deep drainage lines along side some roads with no guard rails. Traveling to some area's require a dirt road on a mountain. A wrong turn you will fall 100's of feet.
I been living in SJDS almost four years. From my boots on the ground experience and world travel, I have not found the expat community any worse or better than others. It is a mix of bad and good. Retired military, others on fixed income, remote workers, hedge fund babies and business owners. Single men, women, couples and married expats with families. I have noticed a larger presence of back packers and poverty.
SJDS is also a favorite place of many seven figure bankers, investors and high end individuals/expats. I have met a few while traveling in front of the plane. Tens of millions of private and equity money has been invested in a near by condo and private 5 star resort geared towards the wealthy expat. I do not know if it is the success they anticipated.
Well I THINK she chose Nicaragua because often coming here can cure that specific health problem. Or not really cure, but cause it to "go away". Under normal circumstances, it vanishes. She went three years here without it.
Under normal stress situations that might trigger it to come back, like it did, would be mitigated by just returning to North America where that specific illness exists. If it was a normal illness, far better to be treated here. Healthcare in Nicaragua makes the US and Canada look like witch doctors. But as it's specifically a US/Canadian food supply illness, not much awareness here.
So this was a super specific set of circumstances that triggered her getting something that they thought had gone away, while also making her able to travel, but needing to be here to manage her husband's situation.
Really, if you had her health problems, you'd want to move somewhere like Nicaragua too. Now she's back in Canada and likely having to live with lots of medications and flareups, but until this happened here, she was healthy.
I don’t even want to drive in Flori-duh any longer; already plan on buses & drivers upon arrival in Nica.
Having driven both recently, I prefer driving in Nicaragua these days. jaja
Thanks for the thorough coverage of their unfortunate incident and its takeaways for the expat community. As for me I'll be driving a moto there, if I even drive at all.
Wages are cheap, hire a permanent driver.
Imagine how much cheaper a driver would have been than this! Their financial losses from this one event easily would have paid for a decade of a private driver alone!
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog Driving in these countries, including Mexico is hell anyway.
@@bodyloverz30 I ride a motorcycle in Nicaragua all the time, I find it wonderful. What I don’t do is drive at night if I can help it. Hostels are cheaper than stressing out riding in the dark for me anyway.
@GoochGooch-cc7sj spot on! Me also love driving the 🏍 in nica. Driving at night is super dangerous though totally agree
Would car insurance have solved this ?
So i'm going to hypothesize so take this response as that - but it's super illegal to drive without insurance here and they check a lot. If he had not had insurance he'd likely have been found guilty instantly or at least quickly, no need to hold him in jail he'd get moved to prison. so i'm quite confident that he had insurance.
now insurance could in theory help with some payments, but i'd assume only if they proceed with the legal process. not if they just casually negotiate with the family - otherwise you'd fake accidents and rob the insurance companies. they need a formal judgement.
i think had they proceeded insurance might have assisted to some degree. but had they proceeded i doubt they'd have needed insurance at all. he wasn't at fault and so no need to pay.
so i think the answer is: he had it but it wasn't helpful. the problem was that they were tricked and in a way that cut off resources like insurance from being able to help
Such a fantastic video, my first priority when I visit somewhere is trying not to walk around like an entitled tourist with no interest in people. My wife and I visited Managua and Leon (with a few helpful tips from Scott) and we made friends everywhere, coffee shops at the big market, different eateries, government workers, etc. Folks there were so chatty as soon as you acknowledge them and we left with several new phone numbers for next time.
Awesome! How soon do you return?
Excellent analysis of the situation! I followed Allison's journey and felt bad for everything they experienced. The GoFundMe campaign turned me off but to each their own I suppose.
I always have a negative reaction to those things, as I think a lot of people do. But her family had over $100K (I assume Canadian) in expenses from this, mostly medical. The GFM is really about covering their medical issues, not the jail issues. While that was significant, it wasn't even remotely (as I understand it) the financial issue. The massive medical emergency was crippling and can happen anytime, anywhere, to anyone. It's not just medical issues in Nicaragua, but they have to continue dealing with them (obviously) in Canada too. And months of lost working income as their sole bread winner wasn't able to work. So EASY for expenditures to become really huge, really fast.
I am guessing that a lawyer was used for, buying the house,car, residency ect. But most of the people who get scammed in SJDS use a “one stop shop” for all these services, the “real estate agency”. They purposely keep people in the dark so that the people will come back the next time they need a car, assistance in paying bills, or even a roll of toilet paper. Most of these people who get molested by these “real estate” agents continue to promote and recommend their abusers to enter their friends lives as well. I think this is the situation that happened here when she reached out to a “friend” for help.
Yes, that's the "pyramid" we talk about. The people getting scammed side with the scammers because otherwise, they have to admit that they've been scammed AND deal with living next door to scammers, having to find alternative services, etc. So you end up with these large communities of people often working the scam together at a community level. It gets super dangerous.
What a shame, what is going on in SJDS. I was born in Nicaragua and I like to visit SJDS for a day or two (when I go to Nica), but I wouldn’t live there. I hope Allison and her family overcome this incident soon. 🙏🏻
Yeah, I like to visit, but I'd definitely not live there either. And we considered it back in 2019, very glad that we dug in deeper as to where we wanted to be.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog Yep, you are fine where you are. Good job choosing the city!
Thanks. Yeah, Leon turned out to be perfect. Such an amazing experience. We got really lucky that we ended up in Leon.
Really enjoyed hearing your take on this story as well as all the setting and character descriptions, that really does help to understood it all unfolded. I agree wholeheartedly that none of this was their fault, they were on the bottom of a bottom feeding situation that they had limited control over. However, I stand by my original comment on your other video that Alison and her husbands decision to pack up their small innocent children and move to essentially a third world county they knew very little about (her words) just because they could get more real estate opportunities (her words) was a very reckless decision. The situation they found themselves in was not their fault but they struggled in the situation because they did not do the due diligence they should of done prior to moving there. And I only use the term reckless because they brought their children with them. It is absolutely mind blowing to me how any mother would think that was a good idea. If she wanted her kids to be cultured, she could of taken them on vacations .
Coming to the "third world" is great for kids, kids are safer here than in North America. But you are right, it was incredibly reckless to move anywhere, third world isn't the issue, and live in extreme isolation without doing the basic adult things one would need to live even at home in Canada safely alone, let alone with children. If she had moved to the USA, it would have been even more dangerous for them living in that way. If anything, it being super safe Nicaragua / third world allowed them to live more or less safely in a manner that really isn't safe anywhere.
What's weird is.. what "real estate opportunities" did they get? Maybe I'm missing something there. But like, they bought in the worst place, in the worst way (at a good time), but they didn't have a lawyer, so likely they paid double or triple the actual value of the place (that's standard for people buying like that.) Like yes, things are cheap in Nicaragua, but cheap isn't the same as a deal. It's only a deal if you can buy low and sell high. But I'm guessing that they did the opposite. WIthout a lawyer, everyone gets scammed on price, and often on the deal, too.
It's not so much due diligence before moving. We don't know what she did there. I mean we can guess and likely you are correct. But we can't really know. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, they might have done a ton of due diligence. Nicaragua is one of the best possible places to raise kids. Super safe, solid rule of law, good future, some of the best women's rights and protections in the world. Hard to get better to raise kids. But, to your point, they ended up in the one place you are least likely to go in the country if you do your research and once they arrived, it appears they did nothing that would reflect having done good research before. But we're just guessing. I did a LOT of research and lived all over the world including many first world countries and chose Nicaragua for my kids with more diligence than most anyone has ever done. But due diligence ahead of time isn't at all the same as "basic adulting" in the moment. And it appears that for three years they were just kind of "hoping for the best". I know it is tempting to get into a "feels like we are on vacation" mindset and forget that you have to live an actual life, too. But, who knows.
And who knows if now that they are back in Canada anything has changed. Are they still at the same risks? She's said multiple times how scared she is, in Canada. If they treat Canada the way that they treat Nicaragua (blind, no idea, no resources, just floating through) then they are definitely in more danger there. It's mostly Canadians in SJDS making things risky, and Canadians are constantly reporting moving to Nicaragua out of fear for their safety back home. So it's easy to imagine moving back to Canada might given them family and specific medical treatment, but be even harder without the easy straightforward laws and such.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog all fair and valid points. For the record I wasn’t dogging Nicaragua at all, I have no doubt it’s safer than NA, especially today but to leave their home base where they had familial support with mom having a very serious medical condition and how quickly they moved was reckless. I watched the videos when she was in Canada and they decided they wanted to move, she was talking about where they wanted to go and it was so casual and off the cuff. The way she talked about it sounded like it was a very quick decision and based solely off real estate. At least that’s the way I interpreted it. It’s tragic if they have returned to Canada and are still not safe, I had no idea that was a thing there. When she kept saying she wasn’t comfortable sharing things still due to safety I honestly assumed she meant people from Nicaragua would come for her.
@1mama402 people coming from Nicaragua to get her in Canada would suggest they are insane. lol. That's so far from reality. She expects some disgruntled fake lawyer trying to scam someone for $2000 to spend $50,000 and risk canadian or american jail to silence someone exposing a scam lawyer?
@1mama402 i didn't know the background. yeah for me it was ten years of research before moving with kids. and definitely not for real estate deals.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog well the will likely own that house for a long time, take a loss, on the bright side is that there is a sucker born every minute.
This a very prominent problem, in this country specially in the department of Rivas where some people are very stupid and decide to drive while drunk, and it's very hard to control at night where there are almost no police officers, and I think traffic lights cannot be possible since it's the panamerican highway
Okay so I have a very dumb question when you're at the Honduras Nicaragua border they make you get car insurance for Nicaragua wouldn't the insurance have covered that?
It would depend what insurance you have. But I'm not aware of anywhere that has insurance that can cross the border unless it is from the region.
I liked your thoughtful description of that particular incident in Nicaragua, but I found it a little too wordy. Thak you for sharing your points of view. FSLN
scott buddy. i acknowledge that you know a lot about many things. ive been trying to get my wife out of nicaragua for 2 years now. it has not happened. nicaragua may be fun for you with money, but its beyond horrible for the poor women trapped there.
In what way is she trapped? If you are married you have the right to be here, why not live here and both of you have a good life? Nicaragua doesn't trap people, if that's what she's telling you, there is something else going on. If you mean the US won't accept her, that's a totally different matter and you should be upset with the US and its treatment of both you and her (two very different situations, both things to be upset about.)
There's no "bad life" for women trapped here. That's a common thing said to convince people to pay for people to move somewhere. LIfe is hard, jobs are few (thanks to the US embargos) but there is absolutely no one trapped here, and with even a tiny amount of outside income someone can live extremely well.
Assuming all of your problems come from being American, and every American I know that marries Nicaraguans gets the uniform bad treatment from the US so this seems likely, you have three great options to make both of your lives better:
1) You move to Nicaragua and you and she together get the dream life. Why avoid the best outcome? Nicaragua has the lowest cost of living, best remote work rights and taxes in the world, great weather, incredible safety, and more freedoms than any North American can fathom. It's a win/win by a long shot. Yes, you might need to change your job as we don't know what it is now, but as an American (we guess) your ability to do so is effectively unlimited. This gives both of you the best lives from a value for money / quality of life perspective possible. She's "trapped" in paradise, presumably without a job, and you are feeling trapped in the rat race. But this is easily solved. Since you are married, you get "automatic" residency, too, as a bonus.
2) Both of you move to a third party country. This could be nearby, like Costa Rica, or farther away, like Bolivia. Or really shake things up and go to Vietnam. Even being limited to the overlap of your two passportsd, you have many great options if for some reason you are both unwilling to live in NIcaragua.
3) You live apart and just visit each other. You can support her remotely from the US or Canada FAR better than you can support her living with you in either country, Europe, CR or others. A single nice dinner per month in the US is roughly the equilvalent to a base salary in Nicaragua. You can support her so trivially remotely that, while being apart sucks, if your goal is to make sure she has no worries and can live the life in NIcaragua you can easily do so. If she was to move to where you are, she would certainly cost most just to house and feed. The cost of living difference is so extreme.
It's true that life sucks for the poor. But that has nothing to do with Nicaragua. Being poor in Nicaragua is a lot better than being poor in the US. In the US, the bottom 70% can't guarantee healthcare and other basics to hit subsistence level. The poorest, most destitute Nicaragua still has more life basics than nearly all Americans. So it's all about perspective. Nicaraguans fear for their futures and plans and life goals, Americans who are similarly poor worry about freezing to death, burning in wildfires, starving or dying from simple medical problems easily treatable for a few dolars bu being denied healthcare options because no one is mandated to help them and its illegal to work around the system. Homelessness in the US is nearly a death sentence and is common, it is unpleasant but rarely scary in Nicaragua and very rare.
There's nowhere in teh world where the poor don't suffer and where being poor is "good". But if you are going to be really poor, there are very few places as safe and comfortable as NIcaragua (this is specifically a thing that Nicaragua does that the US portends to hate - social services for the poor) and few as bad as the US (where it's seen as your fault and a punishment that you deserve.)
But thankfully if she's married a foreigner, she has more status, more options and with the slightest money from you, the financial resources to not be poor. Remember that $200/mo is minimum wage and $800/mo is middle class. If you can send her $800/mo (that's a lot, I know, for most people) it would allow her to live a middle class life and to do so without getting a job herself! Being unemployed and being middle class is epic.
$800/mo is enough for her to own her own house in a nice area, AND hire staff to take care of it.
@ScottAlanMillerVlog ok. ill put on my glasses and study this hard. i have no reason not to trust you.
she has had trouble l
with landladies wrongfully charging her for improvements to the houses she has rented. had to move many times. recently bed bugs infested the house. not her fault . she is super clean. she paid to get the bugs out. moved. was sued. thrown in jail and beat up a bit. shes out now. i was just with her prior to this. im in san francisco now.
She went to jail? For what? Bed bugs in the tropics? Have you seen her in jail and seen her bed bugs first hand? These aren't things people generally worry about here. YOu definitely don't go to jail lightly here. And while bed bugs can live here, they are super rare because they die in the heat. THey are a temperate zone bug, mostly.
WHy are you in San Francisco instead of Nicaragua?
I hate to ask this but... how much proof do you have of these things and do they result in her asking for you to send money? Because these things SOUND LIKE (obviously I have no way to know) things from the "what you can say that Americans will believe" playbook. Because Americans are used to jail as a threat and being sued for things that you aren't at fault for or bedbugs being a problem. Obviously anyone can have something go very wrong, and obviously being poor makes things must more risk and clearly someone just is unlucky. But it sounds like a lot of really unlikely circumstances combined with "American husband."
When she rents, do you have a good lawyer handle the paperwork? It's a totally nominal cost as an American, like a good solid meal at McDonalds. BUt the peace of mind is huge. No reason to be worried about landladies screwing her over. You can eliminate most of these potential problems for just a few dollars and hardly any effort. KEep her safe and you can even pay the rent directly and not worry about that either.
Id love to hear more about reprisals canadian have face in their home country for considering nicaragua? As a Canadian i kind of need to know about this so i can potentially try and mitigate it
What I've been told by a Canadian here is that they were "too supportive" of Nicaragua in their online presence and that the US had asked them to intervene. They said that they were visited by the mounties about it.
As a CDN I understand their reticence in regards to lawyers. They seem only to be interested in money, not in our best interest.
I've not had that experience in the US or in Nicaragua. There are plenty of people like that in any field, but like in any field, you have to put in some effort to find the good ones that are on your side. It's like IT, the field I work in, most people claiming to be IT aren't even in the field and are actually salesmen. But a little effort finds that out fast. Lawyers are a little harder, but I've had no problem finding lots of good lawyers in Nicaragua. And even if they seem to be after your money (which would be shocking given the low cost of lawyers in Nicaragua) you need them, it's part of how the legal systems work in most countries. It's not a law that you have to have one, but it's a practical requirement that you can't get things done without one.
San Juan del Sur is definitely an enclave. I lived there for five years and know many people there. Many characters and many expats that just scrape by. Rivas is about 1 hour by chicken bus and 30 minutes by car. I only use private transport in Nicaragua (specifically for liability reasons) and never want to own a car there unless I have an employee or friend to chauffeur me around. There is no Canadian embassy in Nicaragua but they have local representatives, which in SJDS was Eunice, I am not sure if she still has that position.
There is one. Maybe it's new. Alison from ALison's Journey worked with them a few months ago.
www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/nicaragua/managua.aspx?lang=eng
In her videos, she began with corrupt lawyers that were recommended to her by people in SJDS. How does one find a trustworthy lawyer?
ua-cam.com/video/DOTJzY5cM_M/v-deo.html
So it's always hard because you need time to evaluate them. So you follow some good processes and basic common sense combined with some research and testing. In her case, these were some of the things missed:
1. She asked enclave people where to find a lawyer. You never get advice from people in the enclaves unless it is enclave specific advice. No group of people could be less likely to have good information - it's specifically the group most isolated from local knowledge.
2. She used people in and resources from SJDS. This is one of the basic Nicaragua common knowledge "no nos". SJDS has easily the majority of, not just the most, but most of the scammers in the country. If you hire a lawyer from there, while a good one isn't impossible, you assume that you will get scammed. It's just how money is made there, she's the perfect example of why it's so easy to make big money there and that doing a good job doesn't get you work (no one recommended a legit lawyer, only the scam ones!)
3. She should have used a lawyer for her residency, car purchase, house purchase, and likely a few other things that we don't know about over her three years of living in the country. Those were her low risk moments to have tried out lawyers and found out, without there being a time crunch or big risk, who was going to do a good job and truly work on her behalf, who was competent, etc. She had done so many "should have a lawyer" transactions that she mentioned, yet somehow didn't even know the name of a lawyer let alone had one on retainer. They burned the natural opportunities to have hired, tested and evaluated lawyers ahead of time.
4. Even if they never had a reason to use a lawyer, as an expat you should be working to find one even just to say hi, have their number and know how to reach them when needed. Everyone should have a lawyer's contact info at the very least.
5. Normally you cultivate friends and contacts over time living somewhere. Up here in Leon, there really aren't any expats who can't find good lawyers really quickly - because everyone knows each other, everyone knows who are the trustworthy sources and can get a number or reference from someone quickly. Maybe not in minutes, but several hours for sure. Allison's family wasn't just "lawyer isolated", they were completely "community isolated." She didn't have a single trustworthy neighbor or friend with resources. Either because they had no real friends, or more likely, all of their real friends were similarly isolated to the point of having no idea about how to deal with anything. You can see from this how real estate, law, business and similar scams work so easily down in SJDS if there are whole communities of people who both don't know any lawyers and don't call any when they are needed (like when buying a house.)
Allison and family didn't do anything "wrong", but they also didn't take basic proactive steps to use lawyers when they were really important, have basic contacts of resources needed for safe adulting in any country let alone a new one, to learn how things work and what is needed as residents of a new country, nor to have local friends that were both trustworthy and/or had the said resources that her family did not. I would say, and I mean this honestly, the average expat that we know up here in Leon has more resources in their first one to two WEEKS than this whole family had after more than three years. And while they called themselves poor, they were living in the richest community in the country, in a rich way. People living on a fraction of that kind of expenditure in the rest of the country have many more resources typically almost immediately.
I'm going to be making another video soon about verifying lawyers. But there is a carnet (ID card) that lawyers have to have AND there is a government website that verifies their license, that it is current and exactly what they are specialists in. Doesn't guarantee a good lawyer, but provides a REALLY firm foundation to start from.
To me sounds like the "lawyers" took her for a "ride" and completely took advantage of her being so naiive and she just trusted everyone. Yes you have to be careful driving here. Don't drive at night unless necessary, don't drive drunk, have the coverage for the insurance, and like you said most importantly know the right people. Good review on her story. I agree.
I think it's a little more than she felt that the lawyers weren't to be trusted, but she felt backed into a corner and had nowhere to turn. Of course, I'm getting this from her videos after the fact. But in her story she mentions that she was super suspicious and didn't feel good about the lawyers, but that she also felt that she had no recourse. She didn't have another lawyer to turn to, she didn't know any more of what to do, she was already screwed because they both took all of her available money AND set her up for disaster with the family before she had time to react. Naïve, yes, but at the point of dealing with the lawyers, I'm pretty confident that she knew she was in trouble and never actually trusted them. I think.
@@CRPVlogger when i was there i found driving at night was much better, no police and much less traffic
If "things in the road" weren't so much of an issue, night driving is definitely better.
Although the majority of my police stops have been at night. But never a problem. Last time we all stood around and chatted for a while. Police stop in the middle of nowhere. They were so bored.
Hi Scott , I see you are a business consultant and I have some questions about my business that I been running here in Yonkers NY in the last 5 years. I don’t have a lawyer and I don’t have an accountant so I’m in a little of things that I need to clarify , let me know how can we communicate and we can talk , I am from Nicaragua , living in the states since 97.
I am indeed. Shoot me an email at scott@latinamericanliving.com
San Juan del Sur had another case involving Eric Volz. He made mistakes that he should have known better than. The significant other is alway first to be suspected for the murder. Then he offered to help with the investigation by paying for private investigators and other expenses.
How long ago was that?
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog in the 2000s. Despite what the US media, Oprah and dateline would have you believe, Eric Voltz was definitely guilty. They used his case as a smear campaign against Nicaragua, I remember he even came out in pro bush commercial back in the day. Most of that has been scrubbed from the internet now though.
That is a wild situation. How did they let that happen to themselves?
At the beginning, likely a sense of safety. You are in paradise, nothing ever goes wrong.
Then once it happened, confusion and panic. It was out of their ken and they weren't sure what to do.
Once they were scammed, they were outside of the common workflows and no one was sure what to do then the medical emergency kicked in.
100% true lived in Nica 6 years... you dont do anything without a lawyer... sounds intimidating but its a way of life and not at the cost you think of living in N. America
The main reason they didn't go to court is because they had con artists instead of lawyers who had no interest in going to court. By the time they had a real lawyer they were in too deep and i think the chance to go to court had past.
They always had the court option. What people that I know all believe is the case is that they NEVER had a real lawyer. The second lawyer does not seem to have acted like or gotten the work done that a normal lawyer would have done right away. A better con artist, sure, but from how the story went, I think the chances that that was a real lawyer is very low. There's only so high of a chance that the people that they were talking to were even the family. Easily all of it was a charade. Never having ANY reliable person involved in the process and being unable to handle things herself, they were left "being told" everything that was going on by other people and never really knowing the truth.
Will attorneys have an “inside track” for the department they hang their shingle (local resources & regional understanding) that equates; understanding their home address is irrelevant.
In some cases, yes, but only if you find a really good one. And often those will have access to resources in other places as well. The individual departments aren't that uniquye. It isn't like the laws vary.
For some population perspective, Nicaragua is about the size of the Dallas metro. So looking for a "local" lawyer by department would be roughly the equivalent to looking for a lawyer from Denton, Carrollton, Ft. Worth, Plano, Frisco instead of just one from the Dallas area. It's just too small of a place to have the importance of locality come into play.
And looking for a lawyer based in your village would be like looking for one specifically in your housing development in Dallas. Those would be similar in population size.
Nicaragua isn't equivalent in population to Texas, but to Dallas, Houston OR Philadelphia. Which helps to explain why things are more unified.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog great framing for for the lack of regional specificity.
Oi! I took a peak at her videos, not surprised in the least. One of her videos is of them searching for land to build their house on, not sure if that's what they did or not. They definitely did NOT venture outside of the enclave in any meaningful way. Admittedly I only perused quickly and I am quick to judge those types of folks.
I was wondering when this was coming. Im commenting before watching. Heres where i believe they made their biggest mistakes. Let add that i have never lived in Nicaragua. In fact, ive only been outside the USA for short periods of times. I think they relied too much on the none Nicaraguan people living around them. For example, the husband did not speak Spanish even though they were living there for three years and i believe they had intended to remain there. The wife spoken Spanish but i dont think she made an effort to learn the culture of the Nicaraguan people. I think the family should have been more involved with the local community. I believe the locals may have seen them as "those uppity people living a sucluded life." I also think they should have made direct contact with the other family sooner. It was obvious almost from the start something was suspicious. I also wish she had told us the numbers. Finally i point out i say yhese things after the fact and if i had been in their shoes i might have made some of the same mistakes.
I didn't mention the Spanish because learning a language can be insanely hard for some people (like me, been trying to learn Spanish since I was little and I suck) so that might be out of their control. But not knowing the customs, locals, processes, or what to do in an emergency are definitely things that they could have done to be safer. This is just one of many risks to someone who isn't familiar with the people and customs of where they live.
ANd yes, I'm super confused why the numbers would be secret. That seems very odd. I can't figure out why you'd ever hide that. But maybe we are missing something. She's been clear that she's afraid for them in Canada, so who knows.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlogthanks for your input
That they lived in an enclave region (SJDS) in an expat gated community I believe, they had multiple layers of "separate from the community." Even if they had made a huge effort to know customs and such, there's no way being rich North Americans in the "town for the rich foreigners who don't want to be part of Nicaragua" in a "keep everyone separate" housing development won't override any good will and appear as a desire to be separate - even if the logic was only that they got a good deal on a style of house that they liked. It's not wrong to do that, but being so oil and water with the country and culture you live in will always come with at the very least the appearance of not wanting anything to do with the locals. Even if you are just really introverted and don't want to mix with anyone, ever.
Once they invoked the Canadian embassy to try to circumvent the legal processes, I think that there was no going back. Even though they were Nicaraguan residents, that takes them down a path of "we aren't part of this place" to an extreme degree. They didn't go to the embassy once things had gone wrong or because there was something to fix, because they were avoiding the legal processes (for good reasons), invoking the embassy and trying to apply foreign pressure to circumvent national sovereignty and integrity of the legal process burned any "goodwill" bridges that there might have been.
Had that embassy process worked, you know the Canadian government would have used that as an opportunity to call it "corruption and ignoring the rule of law." It's so good that no one fell for that trick. I understand why they felt that they had to do it, everyone was pressuring them to do it from every side and if you don't have any cultural or historical or political knowledge of the ongoing relationships between Nicaragua and Canada, and Nicaragua's continuing fight to maintain soverignty in the face of North American pressure to capitulate, it's easy to have no real idea how inflamatory such a move would be. But that comes back to... the risks of living in a place that you haven't taken the time to learn about, know and understand to some degree.
Thanks Scott another very informative video… I’m travelling to sjds with my family for the month in Feb… we have been before for just a week about 8 years ago ( and I’m afraid the vibe will look very different) my husband wanted to get to know the town a little better ( as we are getting close to retirement) so we are staying longer( I of course because I watch you wanted to try the north) anyway when we are travelling we like to try and get immersed with the locals as much as possible but I believe this may be getting harder now as I feel we (visitors to Nica) are all being painted with the same brush rich, ignorant,exclusive travellers taking advantage of an affordable country… we want to be armed with as much knowledge of their rules and expectations but you are scaring me now about travelling to sjds…that regardless of our awareness travelling there it may not matter how prepared we are… we will be a target … i feel horrible for Allison’s family and certainly wouldn’t want to be involved in anything like this … so
1. would you say even to travel for a vacation it’s good to know who to call ( lawyer) just in case.
2. also not to rent a car to travel outside sjds to explore?
😢
Appreciate your advise and input -Always
It's a bit different than eight years ago, for sure. But not completely. Remember it's calmer now and a lot of development stopped. So it didn't boom like you might imagine. But it definitely has changed. I was first there nine years ago myself.
I think the "painted with one brush" problem is mostly SJDS and a little in Granada. Up here, it's definitely not like that.
In SJDS your risk is not from Nicaragua or Nicaraguans, but from expats. If you are aware that "everything is a scam", you are fine. No one is going to mug you or threaten you. They are just going to convince you to invest in a house, a business, to hire local resources, etc. It's super easy to avoid, and honestly mind blowing that so many people fall for it. But SO many people are involved that it gets hard to believe that so many people could be refusing to admit that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.
Allison had a horrible situation, but it's one that absolutely no one that I've met can believe they let happen to themselves. I've never met anyone who would be at that level of risk. It was an extreme situation.
1. No, you don't need a lawyer for vacation. But you should know HOW to call a lawyer (don't use a local one in SJDS, don't rely on expats in SJDS, etc.) No different than traveling in the US or Canada or Europe.
2. Unless you really need it and have the flexibility to deal with disasters that can arise, don't rent a car. Just hire a driver. Often this is no more costly than renting a car but SO much safer and more convenient.
Why didn’t they call the Canadian embassy first thing? I don’t understand how they didn’t have ANY contact for a lawyer or any help. None of it makes sense Unless they lived in complete isolation.
Also I don’t mean to call the embassy and just ask them to get you out of it. I mean calling the embassy and asking for numbers and some sort of direction to take for the process since they clearly had no idea of what to do.
That might have been a move to make, but if they were aware of how the embassies work, rarely do the embassies have any useful information. Now, it would seem surprising given how little they were aware of other aspects of expat life that they would know that the embassy couldn't help them, but I've never heard of an embassy here having names or numbers of lawyers or similar resources. They might, but I'd be surprised. As an expat, calling my embassy is pretty close to the last thing that I'd think of. Under normal conditions they don't provide any assistance or resources and the info that they provide is often counterproductive, likely to lead you astray more than anything. Their real value is in being able to arrange airlifts in case of foreign invasion or something like that. Which is SUPER valuable, for sure. But they aren't there for day to day assistance. It's not like a tourist information center. THe embassies are primarily there for other tasks, assisting citizens in country is very, very much a side thing that they do from time to time.
But you are right, given zero knowledge of anything, the embassy would have been a resource to at least talk to. I know some advertise that they can coach you on what to do in case of things like this, even if they don't get involved.
They handed me a phone and a list of lawyers years ago... while being in a neighbouring country.
Took me over 2 years and a half to go back home... but I'm fluent in Spanish now...
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog hmm maybe so for the American embassies but I know that the common wealth embassies have it be Canada or Australia for example are there to help with things their citizens need in that country. I needed access to a new passport and the Canadian embassy in San Jose did that for me. I didn’t even talk to anyone in Canada. I’ve had Aussie friends in Thailand get into trouble with scammy jetski rental companies and the embassy dealt with the police and lawyers with them. I’m clearly not going to contact them and ask for travel advice/resturant recommendations and hopefully they know the guy that can give me discount on the zip line tours.
I consider myself well traveled and have been living in costa rica for 6+ years full time, Now San Juan Del Sur and considering moving here full time. With the high amount of Canadian travelers coming here and maybe not well traveled or wouldn’t know what to do if a bad situation came up, absolutely I would recommend calling the embassy first thing. They are there to help you. They aren’t going to come get you out of jail/hospital but they will point you in the right direction to take if you have zero direction at all. But yes if you are going to attempt to live here. Get a good lawyers number and have the number for the embassy.
Good to know. The American embassy is definitely lean on services beyond full on emergencies. But not their job either, so I'm not upset about that. But interesting that Canada provides kind of a customer service center.
My uncle informed me when I get to the border I would have to buy car insurance to drive in Nicaragua so wouldn't that car insurance that I would be purchasing to drive in Nicaragua cover the accident
In theory, yes, that's its purpose. They had insurance too, but since they didn't move forward with the accident proceedings, the insurance couldn't kick in. In this situation, they were not at fault and so had no responsibility to pay. But they voluntarily requested not to move forward with the court case which kept them in limbo. The costs and problems that they faced didn't come from the accident. Their insurance would have covered those portions.
That is the normal..in Nicaragua someone died in a accident..they hold you in jail till everything is clear .that is the law .simple
but that's not the issues. yes that happens. but that's like two days. he was in for 72 days because they voluntarily requested the process to be stalled.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog My lawyer said that this would be unlikely to happen. He told me that I would have to give up my passport, and jump through a few hoops but this was a case of someone being taken advantage of. He told me that he had never heard of something like this.
Well it REALLY depended on the Canadians REQUESTING to be held "indefinitely". The court granted them their request. At any time they could have pushed forward with the legal process and presumably he'd have been released.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog all most people get out of this story is that Nicaragua is a hell hole that has a broken legal system. And as we knew know that is not the case at all. I would be surprised if the Canadian government doesn’t pick up on this one and use it for propaganda to frighten people into staying in Canada.
THey already did, she mentions that in the videos that they were threatened that either they had to release to the media or the media was going to run the story without context. No one "gets" taht from this story, though. People who already decided to lie about it will repeat the titles of this story and claim that, no one who watches her videos could possibly think that there was a legal issue, she was very clear that they opted out of the legal process and it was all that they never did their proper steps. The instant the court was involved, all was solved. Someone's gotta to be super dishonest or completely ignoring the videos to get anything else from them. Which obviously people will do, but they were doing that even without these videos.
Yes, go to muscal events! 🙃
SO. MUCH. MISINFORMATION. ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE JUDGES.
Yeah, they quickly realized, I think, that she had no grounding in reality and that they could tell her anything. So she ended up being taken off in a million wrong directions. And once it got to be that crazy, she had no idea how to tell what was reasonable (the existing judges are quite busy) or unreasonable (they country has no functional legal system and everyone arrested for anything stays in jail indefinitely with no process to get out, ever.) Makes no sense, but North Americans are bombarded with misinformation like this all the time so when people prey on you in Nicaragua, it lines up with crazy things you've been told elsewhere and you start to wonder if you might be crazy.
Big RED LIGHT for me I will pass
Did you watch the video? What in it could POSSIBLE create a red light for you? Must be confused.
I don't agree that you keep repeating throughout the video that several things aren't her fault. She definitely has some responsibility in the outcome of all of this. Being ignorant to the law doesn't excuse you from the law.
That's true, you have to obey the law even if you don't know it. But what law did she break? Importantly, at no point did either Allison nor her husband, break any law. A law was broken, by the scam lawyers, because they falsified that the family was contacted. But Allison attempted to contact them through her lawyers.
There are laws that she didn't know about, that seems true. But she only was surprised by them, didn't break them.
In her Part 1 video at 2:30, she states that her husband turned left while the motorcyclist was coming from the opposite direction. She glosses over the crucial fact that her husband did not have the right of way and quickly shifts to listing all the things the now-deceased motorcyclist allegedly did wrong. You also claim right off the bat that her husband wasn’t at fault, repeatedly framing him as simply involved in an accident where someone lost their life.
However, even if we accept her assertion that the motorcyclist was speeding, had no lights, and had alcohol in his system, her husband shares culpability for making a left turn without the right of way. At best, this is a case of shared liability. It’s likely that this understanding is why she delayed starting the judicial process-she always had that option available.
While I might have felt some sympathy for them under different circumstances, their decision to involve the Canadian embassy and produce an excessive 11-part UA-cam series about a supposedly corrupt Nicaraguan system has diminished any compassion I could have for them. They portray themselves as victims while casting our country in a negative light, filled with inaccuracies and false claims, all in an attempt to raise funds through her GoFundMe. Now that IS a SCAM. It's shameful to see a privileged white north american damage the reputation of our country, government and its people for personal gain.
Why i'd never drive or consider living there w such archaic laws
Do you not drive in the US? The US is far worse in that the laws aren't even official, they can arrest you and keep you in prison, forever, even if you aren't at fault because the judge is allowed to make a new law that says you were wrong and there's no recourse. So keep some perspective. This is SO MUCH better than the US where laws and detention are arbitrary. Here, you know the law ahead of time, and it's pretty simple. I'll take a strict legal system with an overzealous lockdown holding cell weekend over being starved to death without trial for something a judge made up after the fact any day.
It's a good reason to rethink driving anywhere. There are very few places where driving and having a catastrophic accident can't result in difficult situations. Professional drivers (like taxis) are held to a higher standard in theory, but also have mechanisms for dealing with stuff that normal drivers do not. I'm a massive advocate for public transportation infrastructures. This is a universal problem that accidents are grey areas. I've been in a stationary vehicle that was hit by a driver paying no attention. But she was friends with the cops and managed to get the driver of the vehicle I was in charged even though every witness said she had just driven into us. The cops took the opportunity to get their cut, and because there weren't cameras (and even if there were) we were powerless, the cop was the biggest criminal in the situation. Stole hundreds of dollars for his friend who, in reality, had committed vehicular assault. It was clear after the fact that they worked together. And that was in rural New York.
This is why I think the world needs to move to autonomous cars as quickly as possible. Real ones, not fake ones like that Tesla BS. Cars with sensors and logic and rules that govern how they operate. But we nearly have that tech and that needs to be where the future is. Human drivers need to be outlawed for everyone's safety. It's heavy vehicles in the public space.
Scott, I think this is your best video to date. Right now, I am not looking to relocate to Nicaragua specifically, but to Latin America generally, as a part-time expat in about 6 years. Your advice has very broad applicability and gives much food for thought. I know I have a tendency to be extremely naive in certain circumstances, and I am doing my best to shed decades of layers of an American centric world view and dare I say US propaganda. I am a veteran and love the USA, but every country has propaganda. I can honestly say that, until very recently, I didn't think that the USA committed human rights violations or that bribery of government officials was "a thing" in the USA. I also believed that evil people went to prison in the USA, with little exception. I am not proud of my ignorance. I am a highly educated woman with several advanced degrees. School did not fix my ignorance, but working inside US prisons shook me to my core and opened my eyes to some very painful realities. And only because of things I witnessed first hand, then researched relentlessly. You have a tremendous grasp of the nuance within Nicaraguan culture, the geopolitical history that informed dynamics between countries, and more. I have holes in my adulting and expat skills, despite having lived abroad and traveled extensively outside the USA. I am sorry for Allyson. She just didn't know. I pray that I catch on in a very meaningful way. My guardian Angel is very tired and has been run ragged with me. Again, thank you.🙏🙌
@jennifermasino9137 thank you so much. Good luck on your Latin American expat research and adventure! Keep us up to date as you hone in on a decision about where you will be headed.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog Thank you, Scott! I will!
HAHAHA, NOW YOU KNOW WHAT ISTO LIVE IN A DICTATORSHIP!!!
lol. going to guess you didn't watch the video ;)
Wordy crap----
thanks for the constructive feedback
As a Canadian i can assure you our government doesnt give a shit where Canadians move to.furthermore the canadian forgien affairs dept.serves Canadians anywhere in the world.Not sure what u were told Scott but Canada is just like the U.S.we are free and have no need to fear our government.
Wait. Is it just like the US, or do you not need to fear your government? But i got the fear message from Canadians.