Gringos in Costa Rica
Courtesy Costa Rica Living

Over the years I have had the opportunity to meet many Americans from all walks of life. To be here you have to an adventurous and different type of person. It takes a lot of courage to move anyplace. Some people have a difficult time moving one place to another in their home town let alone moving to another country.

The majority of the North American retirees I have encountered have been very pleasant people. I have had nothing but good dealings with this group. However, let's look at the other side of the coin.

A growing number of would-be North American entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly attracted to Costa Rica because of the growing number of business opportunities especially in the fields of tourism and real estate. Unfortunately many of these people are not qualified professionally, lack the fundamental knowledge and life experiences and even ethics. I have heard a growing number of Americans complain that despite the growing crime problem among Costa Ricans, that they have had more bad experience and been victimized more by fellow Americans.

The problem is that we have now have overnight gurus and experts being by the slews. Some foreigners think that by just moving they have enough experience to dole out advise and go into business. Recently, I checked out a tour company and found the owners had only lived in Costa Rica for a few months. How could they possibly have enough knowledge about Costa Rica to run a tour company in such a short time?

Would-be real estate agents are coming out of the woodwork. Many are even wetbacks (no offense to our Mexican brothers) who are working here illegally without having residency. Would you buy property in the States or Canada from an illegal?

I even heard of a person selling Costa Rican real estate in the States who had never even been here.

With the graying of the baby Boomers there are now thousands of web sites springing up all over the Internet by people offering retirement and real estate. Its hard to separate the real deal from inexperienced people and outright scoundrels. Every real estate site has retirement info. They have cut and pasted from a few of the real authorities on the subject. Several groups offer retirement related services and the principals don't even speak Spanish nor have they lived here for enough time to give good advice. They are just here to ride the gravy train of the gold rush and prey on naive prospects.

One very smooth talking character I met , who passed himself off as a very religious family man, ran a dating service for single men looking for serious relationships. He lured the men in under this pretext and sold them products like off shore corporations, on-line casinos, none of which these people really needed.

Bottom line is most of us who come here just want to live and let live. A few others are here to reap the spoils of the land and take advantage of their naive countrymen. Please be careful! This article is written to both help and protect future and current residents and keep them from making unfortunate mistakes.