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Dear Don I tried to put this somewhere else on Chiriqui Chatter but it is of the utmost importance that you know. Hence everyone else must know. I am working on my residency but I needed to go into and out of Costa Rica in order to keep my drivers license good.
There are agents in the office at the border who are scamming tourists. It works like this. You check out of Panama one stamp. Check into Costa Rica another stamp. Check out of Costa Rica another stamp. Now when you get to the Panama border to stamp in, they are requiring bus tickets (which are from David to San Jose CR) . When you bring them back they say you are not allowed back into Panama because you do not have a plane ticket to the states. Apparently you must have a return ticket to the states with you whenever you enter Panama. You also must show them $500 in cash. There is no ATM at that border station. There is no place to purchase a plane ticket even if you can afford one.
NOW COMES THE SCAM. You are introduced to someone named Joe who offers to help you. He gets you to an internet place across the street from the border station in Panama. Apparently it is okay to walk back and forth across the border with your passport not stamped. Anyway, he points you to a Panama young man who has blue eyes who will help you for a price. He takes your passports and gets you airline reservations. You don't pay for them so you get no ticket. Then he leads you across the street and tells you that this one sheet of airline reservations will get your passport stamped. Understand that you have tried repeatedly for hours to get these people to stamp your passport and they keep coming up with something else or turning you down flat. The nice young man from the internet store now makes a phone call into the border station. Now they all talk for a minute and stamp our passports with no problem. The price is $40 each person paid to the nice young guy from the internet place to be split up with the border agents. Plus he wants a tip. $142 later and two bus tickets you will never use because you have driven to the border waited in lines for hours, You are finally going home in Panama. IT IS CRIMINAL WHAT THESE GUYS ARE DOING. THERE ARE MANY TOURISTS WHO ARE BEING HELD AT THE BORDER. YOU CAN'T IMAGINE WHAT IT IS LIKE TO HAVE A PASSPORT WITH YOU NOT CHECKED INTO ANY COUNTRY. i talked to my attorney and she said they can not do this. I was told by these guys not to tell anybody about their deal. I felt threatened and scared. My wife was crying and upset. This will undoubtedly become a recurring nightmare. I talked to some expats who had been here for years doing the same things. They were dealing with the same guy. My guess is that there were at least 7 people who were scammed by these guys in a period of a few hours. 7 times 40 = 280 bucks split 4 ways among these thieves. Not a bad deal for them in this poor country.
I suggest to anyone who will listen that they should get their residency cards and avoid this situation along with their drivers license. I hope someone gets into trouble and I hope it is not me. This kind of thing can not be good for Panama and those tourists will tell a similar story to everyone back home too. No one will want to come here if these few agents continue their stuff. This all happened between 11:00 am and 2:30pm on September 5th. There were only very young agents at the border station including one young lady who appeared to be the ring leader. From the Spanish I could understand, I heard them talking about me and they were laughing at me. I will not attempt this again and if I have to stop driving until I get my residency I will. Hope this helps someone else.

NOTE: Added September 13, 2013. Based on information received from Authoritative sources, this appears to be a crackdown on the Visitors VISA. Extreme caution must be taken to not be in Panama over 180 days at one time. The opinion has been expressed that permanent VISAs are being advised.