The Buenos Aires Herald warns that you may not be able to get your money out of an ATM.

It has been said that cash machines have had a cash shortage at the ATM’s, mainly in the public Banks since the end of December. Provincial banks are being affected greatly, and some 425 people have had to collect wages through Provincial Government due to the problems.

The paper suggests technology issues and control disputes between central and local banks may be to blame, rather than user behavior. However, user behavior is definitely a factor worth considering.

Getting money from a machine in Argentina has been problematic for years, especially on Saturday nights and on paydays (the 15th and 30th of each month), despite ATM withdraw limits for locals that used to be just 250 pesos/week (now 1,000 pesos/transaction). Either way, shortages now have become more frequent and widespread.

An interesting side-effect of the newer per/transaction withdraw limits seems to be that users are still allowed to run multiple sequential transactions. It takes time and creates a crowd of people standing nearby, both of which significantly increase the risk of exposing the PIN.