Dollars in the Bank

Yes the dollars went down in value for a while but come next year, I believe it will appreciate in value. It is now down to 41 level. I'll wait for 2 - 4 weeks and observe the trend before cashing on my little dollar.

that just sucks.. worked hard for money and goes nowhere..
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but, technically speaking, its the investors fault for not doing anything about it. the devaluation didn't come overnight. the investor should've withdrawn at least a part of it when the drop started(or at least midway), converted them to peso and put it in another investment.

It isn't really robbery. Your friend had, maybe, $72,000 which he still has. It may not be worth as much in pesos as it was but it can only be said that he made the exchange at the wrong time. If he waits, the rate may be more favourable.

If it was a transaction which he, perhaps, agreed at one rate but actually happened at a lower rate, then I cannot see who gained by it. The other party, presumably, paid (or received) the right amount in dollars but your friend had to exchange them at an unfavourable rate, which was unfortunate, but was the going rate at the time. Most people who make large transactions in foreign currency have accounts in the currencies they are dealing in and only transfer amounts when the rate is favourable.

I am not sure which "peso" you are talking about. Most countries that use "peso" ans their "moneda" have devalued it at one time or another.

I live in Argentina and have worked for a bank here (just after our devaluation) and I know of some who lost large amounts of money in the devaluation. The Argentine peso is at 3.18 to 1 dollar now and has fluctuated from 2 to 1 up to almost 4 to 1 since then.

Another thing - in answer to your post.

When a country devalues it's currency, there are winners. It usually works like this:

People with money in the bank - lose money (dollars turned to pesos)

People with loans - make money (they owed dollars, now they owe pesos)

It is not an unknown entity that "makes" the money. People here protested at the doors of the banks and banks had to actually be boarded up to stop them from breaking in. I also saw some people smiling because they would have had to pay 300k in pesos to pay off their dollar loan (mortgage) and now they only have to pay 100K (at the average of 3 to 1)

Source - BankBoston and Bank of America

it is unfortunate that it happened to your acquintance. the devaluation of the dollar is wrecking havoc to the savings of the many OFW families. now they are losing their hard-earned money because of this. what a pity! i think the trend will continue because of the iraq invasion. US will continue to spend a lot to maintain its troops in iraq.

I guess if your friend did not exchange the money at a lower rate then his dollars would still be intact and waited for the rates to come back up. I know this is not permanent change for it will come back again sometime. It seems that government right now does have a large amount of dollars in reserve that is why rates are going down. Tips where given that to avoid this kind of situations we should avoid exchanging money on May - June and Oct - Dec where OFWs send most of their money. This is supposed to be good for the economy that peso is getting stronger but it seems not too good for OFWs.