Hi.

I am writing these post in an Internet cafe near University of Mindanao Bolton. I’m in this place, a place far far away from school, cause I’m supposed to fix things up. Here are some of them:

• Withdraw funds from my DBP account.
• Deposit a part of the withdrawn cash to my UnionBank account.
• Go to a nearby Internet cafe to download the parts we need for research.
• Buy electronic components at Davao Times Trading Hardware.
• Go to National Bookstore to buy stuff for my English and Math project.
• Buy soap and shampoo at SM Supermaket.

After the jump is a narration of what happened on my wonderful trip. (more…)

Not an hour ago, an experience made my week. With my positive mental attitude, I get to laugh at it when others would probably resort to cursing.

Earlier, I rode a “public” motorcycle colloquially called habal-habal on my way to One Network Bank. I only had 10 pesos in my pocket, enough money for my fare.

When I reached the Bank, I walked straight to the automated teller machine (ATM). I was welcomed by two disassembled machines undergoing repair. Obviously, I backed off (no choice).

By that time, my only way to get back to the dorm is to walk. So I walked the dusty road back to school. It was so dusty that I feel I had my free face powder when I reached my destination. The walk reminded me of my summer internship.

I had my summer internship at the Environmental Conservation and Protection Center at Alabel, Sarangani Province. There were a lot of days when we had to walk kilometers along the breezy shoreline to assess the mangroves. It was very strenuous, I believe, but the beautiful scenery of the shore lessened the load. It resulted me total knockout every time I reach home.

My experience today made me thank of my internship. It was a really big help (as in BIG HELP, as big as the muscles on my legs). The experience was not much different with my internship walks, it’s just this time it’s on a dusty “shore”.

The author really enjoyed his internship. In fact, he was only required to work for 160 hours but he decided to go for the 200-mark. Here are some blog posts he made during his internship: Bakit?, ECPC Moments

I tried to log on my PayPal account a while ago to confirm what kuya James posted on his blog, Pinoy Money Talk, and indeed, PayPal funds can now be withdrawn to Philippine Bank accounts.

A really great news, right? But not a very good news for me because I’ve already paid 350 pesos for my UnionBank EON account registration fee. If I only knew PayPal was opening this feature to the Philippines, amf.

Now, we can enjoy withdrawing funds for a lower fee. That’s a cheap PhP 50.00 fee for withdrawals lower than PhP 7,000 COMPARED to the $5.00 (more or less PhP 200.00) withdraw-to-card fee.

Ooops, I’m running out of words so I’ll discuss kuya James’ post.

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Pinoy Money Talk is one of the first, probably the very first, to break this news to the blogosphere but expect other sites and blogs to write about this without giving us credit although they got the news from us. LOL. –Pinoy Money Talk

Is this reverse psychology? Hahaha. I’m sure you’re gonna gain some Technorati authority with this.

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P.S. I’m sure some people will again claim that this recent development was a fruit of their labor and lobbying. Cut it out people, PayPal offered this because they saw what a big market the Philippines is for them. It’s not only you who have been long clamoring for this. With or without you, PayPal will certainly offer this anyway! –Pinoy Money Talk

I’m with you. I used to join online petitions for the full expansion of PayPal’s functionality in the Philippines. LOL!

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To my other readers there who got lost of the post’s flow, GOOD LUCK.

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Whoa, PayPal has a new favico.

I was rebooting our computer after killing those Windows XP bugs in Safe Mode when I started to stare at my Unionbank EON card. I inspected the card carefully, from its nice front print down to its back portion. A fraction of the back portion reads Domestic Toll Free. Woohoo, perfect diversion of boredom! I used to be fond of calling toll free numbers when I was still young.

I dialed on our while GE cordless phone, 1800-1888-2277. Weeeee, I heard the voice of an answering machine. I pressed 5 for inquiries on EON and other deposit accounts. The machine said, please prepare your account or card number, you may need it in a short while. A second or two after the notice, I heard something like “Thank you for calling Unionbank. This is [the CSRs name], how may I help you?”. I paused for a moment asking myself, is it real? Yes it was, indeed it was a real person.

I inquired if my EON card was active. She asked for my card number and asked a minute to gain access to my account. After the short hold, she asked me verification details such as my name, address, date of birth, etc. She told me that my account was open and active but they are unable to check if my card had restrictions since it was time for a scheduled maintenance routine. She advised me to call back at 5am after the said maintenance.

Yeah, it was a real fun talking with a live person on phone at this time of the day. I’m very satisfied with Unionbank’s good customer support!

UPDATE: Called at exactly 5:00 am. The CSR advised me to call back later the hour. A small boo, they’re late! Hahaha. I based my 5:00am on the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the ones used in airports and other time-sensitive stuff.

UPDATE: Called at 5:36. At 5:36:49, the line said “All our customer service officers are engaged at the moment. Please hold and your call will be attended as soon as an officer becomes available.” Spoke to a real person at 5:38:30, which is a minute and 41 seconds later. The CS officer told me that according to their Internet Security team, the maintenance took longer than it is expected and is expected to up again the latest by 6.

UPDATE: 5:41am, tried to access online banking portal. It gave an notice that they are still under maintenance. After a minute, I tried again and they’re back UP on the line!

I just got my first debit card today, my Unionbank EON card. I applied for the card late November and was already at the branch last November 25 (according to Unionbank’s email).

Getting the card took me long. See my story after the jump!

But before that, here’s some stuff I learned during my course to getting the card:

1. Unionbank bought 98.84% of iBank’s share. They already merged. Unionbank transactions can now be transacted on iBank and iBank transactions are now considered Unionbank transactions. It’s up to you to understand!
2. For students like me, a school ID would do instead of having to present two IDs. I also brought a copy of my birth certificate just in case they’d need it.
3. The debit card’s CVV is not printed on the back. Instead, it’s written on the PIN Mailer.
4. There’s no interbranch fees for EON account deposits. But there’s a P100.00 charge for an over-the-counter withdrawal. [TiP: Better use an ATM]

(more…)

Yesterday, I posted on my “Series of Unfortunate Events” post my LandBank experience. For those who haven’t read the article, I went to LandBank to withdraw my PhP 2,700.00 school stipend over-the-counter cause I lost my ATM. Yesterday’s transaction was not approved and required me to process its replacement.

So today, I processed its replacement. The process was smooth and easy so there were no problems. Here’s a chronology of events on how I got my replacement. (more…)