by The Happy WAHM
About a month ago, I asked fellow WAHMs for suggestions on a payout processor. See, I’ve been having serious concerns about my current processor. I’ve been with them since 2012, and honestly, I was only really happy with the service for maybe the first four months, when service was on time. After the honeymoon period, everything just went downhill. I have written about our bumpy start here and here, and after those times, I just had to go with the flow, as choices have really been limited.
I could take the crappy customer service, for as long as they credit my payout on time. But even that just felt too much to ask from them. And so last month, I just felt that I need to move on. I feel so bad, really, because I was among the first WAHMs who endorsed them to clients and fellow freelancers. But we all need to get paid on time, right? So, I’m moving on…
I’m really grateful to fellow WAHM, Kristine, for suggesting Western Union in my survey thread on Facebook. There were other great suggestions, of course, like Paypal, Xoom, Orbit Remit and RemitHome. But after going through each one of them, except Xoom [you already know what happened there] and Paypal, I decided to give Western Union a try.
And it did not disappoint.
Here’s what clinched the deal for me…
My scheduled payout is always the 15th of the month. But because present payout processor has never acted on my transactions on time, I have since requested client to allow me to process my salary on the 10th. I would receive my payout around the 20th, or worse, even later. There were months that processing my transactions would take them 15 banking days, so you can just imagine my frustration. Of course, I would not want to request the client for an even earlier payout. It’s not fair to him that he should suffer for the inefficiency of our present processor.
So last December 9, I went ahead and processed my payout, thinking that the Christmas parties might get in the way of employees attending to their tasks promptly. What do you know, they acknowledged the transaction on the 12th. Three days for a mere acknowledgement!
So I was thinking, maybe it’s time I look at other ways to get paid. I remember that my client has a Western Union account, so I went ahead and logged in, checked out the terms and then sent out a proposal to my client for a change in processor. Within minutes, he replied with a go-ahead. And so I did. That was yesterday morning. And this afternoon, the money was credited to my bank account. Amazing!
So now, my only dilemma is the other transaction with the [now] old processor. Since they have a sending limit, I always have to process my payout in two separate transactions. So I have transactions A and B with the old processor. What I did yesterday was to process the amount of transaction B with Western Union, as a test on how they would perform, and then immediately sent a request for the other processor to cancel Transaction B, but keep Transaction A. Alas, up to this time, they have not acknowledged the request for cancellation, nor do they have any notification on the status of my other transaction. Based on our bank records, both amounts have been withdrawn, and should be credited to my account already. But well…
Suffice it to say that we will be using Western Union from hereon.
Here are some share-worthy notes:
- No sending limits – you can get paid with any amount, the sending fee is adjusted according to the amount being sent. Fee is competitive, as well as the conversion rate.
- Different sending options – your client can send using either his bank account, a debit card, a credit card, or can go to a WU branch and personally transact.
- Different receiving options – you can opt to receive through your bank account, or pick up from hundreds of accredited establishments. Most major banks in the Philippines are listed at the WU site.
- Opt to send free of charge, just adjust the sending date. So let’s say you want to receive your payout on the 15th. Your client can save on the sending fee if he chooses to send using his bank account balance. It’s free for the client, but it will take 4 days to reach you. So you can work around that by sending the money just 4 days earlier.
- Instant notifications. Your transaction is acknowledged in real time.
For yesterday’s transaction, I chose the option for my client to pay via his credit card. At the WU site, it says that it will take 1 to 2 days. But as it is, it only took 1 day to reach me. Good, yeah?
Some points that might appeal to your clients:
- If what you are getting is substantial [more than the sending limit of your processor], then doing the transaction twice proves to be more expensive in the end. With a flat fee of $4.99, if your client has to process twice, then it will amount to $9.98, as opposed to WU’s $8.00.
- Using their credit cards can earn them points with the card issuer.
- They earn WU reward points for every transaction fee they pay.
And of course, it may also be good to point out that Western Union has been around for decades. And with the news of remittance companies being shut down by Westpac in Australia, we would want to be with a service provider that has been in the industry long enough to weather these kinds of storms.
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by The Happy WAHM
I always write when I’m emotional. And this morning, I’m feeling just that.
I have just turned over my cross-stitch hobby kit to my middlechild. Out of nowhere, the thought just came that it’s time. A decision was made. She will have my cross-stitch kit.
A few days ago, we were [again] at National Bookstore to pick up a book I had them keep for me. It was a book I saw during their warehouse sale. I thought of getting it for my friend and partner, as I know that her family is into Star Wars. But knowing that they also frequent the bookstores and are avid collectors, I did not buy it outright. I first wanted to find out if they don’t have a copy of it yet. But she took a long time replying to my text message [like I texted her about lunchtime, asking if she would like to have this Phantom Menace book, and she replied early evening that yes, her husband and son would love to have it]. So suffice it to say that I lost the opportunity to buy that book for her. But, persevering soul that I am, I called up NBS to ask if they still have a copy. Alas, hardbound Star Wars books on sale go in a flash, so no, they no longer have a copy. But because I’m social that way, I was able to make a teeny-tiny request of them calling their other branches to see if there are other copies lying around, and if they can have one reserved for me. So a few days ago, I received a call from NBS, telling me that they have found a copy for me, and that they have it reserved, waiting to be picked up.
But that’s not what this entry is about. 🙂
On that trip, my son asked for a fresh supply of clay and some popsicle sticks for his project. You know that feeling of being unfair to the other child when you buy something for one? I had that exact feeling. I just felt that it was unfair not to have something for Bea. So I asked her to choose one from the shelf, as we were on the arts aisle. She picked a cross-stitch kit.
And here is that kit now. Still unfinished, but you can see that for a first project, she’s doing a great job at it. Not to mention that she’s enjoying the craft.
So why choose today to give her my collection?
Well, today, I’ll be meeting up with former officemates at the mall. As is my routine, each time I need to be out of the house, I ask my kids who would want to go with me. It’s my way of involving them in my activities, and at the same time giving them the opportunity to go out and socialize.
This morning, my favorite middlechild joined me in the bed for a cuddle. I always have that time in the morning, before getting up, of cuddling with any one of the kids. This morning, it was Bea.
She knows about my afternoon out with girlfriends, so I asked if she wants to go with me. Surprise, surprise! She did not want to go. When I asked why, she said she’d rather stay home to finish her cross-stitch project.
And so I got up, opened the drawer where I keep all my hobby kits, and showed her my collection of cross-stitching books, aida cloths, skein threads, patterns, finished and unfinished projects and in between, told her stories of how I chose a particular pattern to work on, how I got into the hobby, where I got my first crosss-stitching book, etc. Most of my projects have dates on them, dating back to 1994. And then I showed her how I use old magazines to tape each pattern on, so that individual patterns that I buy are organized and kept like a real book of patterns, and how I make markings either on the cloth or on the pattern as a technique in making my life easier. 🙂
We spent half of the morning just talking about the hobby. And while I’m writing this post, she’s busy finishing her first project.
I don’t know if her interest in cross-stitching will last, or if it is just a passing fancy to match the crochet projects of her older sister. But whether this is just a phase or a life-long passion, I commit to support and encourage her all the way.
Meanwhile, I still have my quilting and sewing kits left in the drawer, waiting for the next set of hands to own them.
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
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by The Happy WAHM
October 31. Eleven days since we first informed PLDT of the problem we’re having with our internet connection.
Every morning, we would lose our dial tone for a period of about 30 minutes to an hour. Then it will be a reorder tone for about another hour. For that same period, the internet will be intermittent. I would be able to connect to Gmail on HTML view, compose an email, only to be told “you are no longer connected” when I’m ready to send the e-mail. Then the intermittent connection will ”improve” to consistently crawling, where I can actually log in to Facebook, but the page will just be loading but not actually displaying. So I could see that I have 15 messages and 52 notifications, but when I click to read, monitor would be displaying a white screen while I could see that little something beside the news feed tab going round and round, telling me that I am indeed connected, but the connection is so poor, it could not display the page.
So I would always end up leaving my desktop on, hoping that the internet would normalize, while I connect with my Globe stick on my laptop. So basically, I’ve been consuming electricity by keeping my desktop on just so I could monitor if PLDT would somehow miraculously restore the service we’ve been diligently and religiously paying for each and every month.
In an ideal world, when you pay for services, you actually get the services you’re paying for. When we subscribe to a service, we actually get into a contract with the provider. We commit to pay our obligations, while they commit to provide the service. But with PLDT, it does not seem to work that way. When a subscriber fails to pay on time, they just go ahead and cut the service. But when that service is problematic, you cannot simply say, I won’t pay.
Sad thing is, when a company is as big as PLDT, it cannot help but be arrogant. What can you do? You cannot even get another service from another company, because there is no other company. I cannot say, I no longer want your service, because the truth is, I need the service. I work using the internet. So I have to stick it out, however bad the service is.
I cannot help but be whimsical, on this day that I have not been productive at work. I’m just writing down the things that I wish for PLDT, in an ideal world.
I wish they would man the fort.
Do you know how much time a subscriber spends waiting on the line to be attended to? An average of 30 minutes! Imagine yourself without the luxury of a cordless phone. You stay with your ear stuck on the receiver, listening to some music interspersed with the latest promotions, topped by some instruction on how you can try to troubleshoot your connection yourself, when you could be doing something more productive with your time, like cooking lunch. Why, oh why, can’t PLDT aim to be at least more responsive, if they cannot be proactive? Have someone answer the phone, promptly, please!
I wish they would stop the recording already.
Just this month, we have called the fault report line several times, and we have just about memorized those recorded troubleshooting guides. It has become such an irritant, knowing that they don’t work anyway. Been there, done that, that’s why we’re calling. If that’s all I’m going to get, why would I bother?
I wish they’d have an SLS.
Or at least have their people know what the acronym means! It’s amazing how clueless their client care people were when we asked them what PLDT’s SLS is. We asked because we didn’t want to be complaining about a bad service when in truth it is still within internal Service Level Standards. But alas, they don’t even know what it means.
Ideally, for a service company to be efficient, there should exist a standard of service. Like when a fault report comes in, how long should it stay on queue for support to assess the problem? And then after the assessment, how long should the problem be handled by outside plant before it gets escalated to the next team of experts? And in total, how long should a fault ticket be handled and resolved? Setting a standard ensures that people are actually working for a resolution.
I wish they’d stop giving customers the run-around.
It won’t hurt to admit that there is something you don’t know. Telling me that “there is an ongoing problem in the area” is not going to work either. I call to report that I have an almost non-existing connection from 7am to 7pm, and connection stabilizes from 7pm onwards. Please don’t tell me that there is a problem with the line. The problem is not with the line. The problem is in the distribution. Check the node. But first, find out what a node is.
I wish they’d use some common sense.
I was truly surprised to find out that on October 24, four days after we called in the first report, the ticket was closed. I asked why they closed the ticket, when the internet connection has not stabilized yet. The genius reply, in vernacular:
Your report was about the loss of dial tone. It was not about the internet connection. You have to file another report for the intermittent internet connection.
Errrr… Did you think that when I didn’t have dial tone, I had internet connection? And wasn’t it the internet connection that was the point of my report? The loss of dial tone was merely mentioned to help you assess the problem!
I wish they’d call us back.
It will be much appreciated, and somehow appease an already irate customer, if someone would just bother to let us know the status of our fault ticket, say, after 24 hours. Or at least, do not, and I mean, DO NOT, tell us to call you again to follow up on the status, because, going back to the first item in my wish list, it’s not fun to have my ear stuck on the receiver for 30 minutes, waiting for someone to attend to my call.
I wish they’d hire someone who knows better.
Based on previous conversations with the client care on the phone, it is either that PLDT is failing in providing adequate training to their technical support on the phone, or the technical department is badly in need of direction in recognizing, and ultimately, resolving connectivity problems.
I wish they’d let their bosses know.
To ensure the quality of service we provide, this call may be recorded.
Oh, sure! And then what happens to the recording? Why is the service not improving? I’m amazed at the marketing promotions that I see on Facebook, offering 999 for 3mbps. I pay 1,600 monthly, and I very rarely hit 1.5mbps. Why, why, WHY? There is a disconnect somewhere.
I just wish that one day, I will experience PLDT in an ideal world.
For now, I am just grateful that I have a back up broadband stick that tides me through the day, while I try to enjoy the ADSL at night.
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
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[photo source: wecreatehere.net]
by The Happy WAHM
And I believe him!
Oh, gosh! I don’t know how I’m going to write this post while I’m doing the happy dance. And grinning from ear-to-ear, too! 🙂
See, this happened just now. Like right now!
I have just received a FREE copy of Jeff Goins‘ e-book, You Are A Writer, (So Start Acting Like One).
Right now, I’m far from acting like a writer. I’m acting like a child who just had her first plushy doll. A Hello Kitty one. Okay, maybe I was more The Little Twin Star type, but who cares?
So anyway, yesterday, I received an email from Jeff. Yeah, we’re close, so he emails me, and I call him Jeff. In my dreams!
Again, anyway, I’m in his mailing list, coz I signed up, okay? And so there’s this email announcing the price-drop for the Kindle version of the book. It was just $0.99, so I excitedly clicked on the link to Amazon, with the intention of buying. Alas, it was priced at $2.99. I know these things happen, because I always encounter these problems in my line of work. So I decided to send a reply to the newsletter to let them know that there’s some bug at work.
Jeff’s assistant, Stephanie, promptly replied that she has gone ahead and fixed the error. So I went back to Amazon, only to see that the price was still $2.99. So I decided to wait it out. Based on experience, propagating a change can take a while.
Tonight, I went to Amazon again, hoping that I could finally get my book. But instead of going down, the price even went up to $4.99. So I decided to email Stephanie again, just to let her know. I was resigned to the idea that I will just have to wait for another price-drop offer.
And then lo and behold! She replied, and again promptly, with an attached PDF and MOBI files of the book! Turns out, the offer was for US customers only, so what I thought was the bug last night was actually not a bug at all, but a location limitation set at Amazon.
So now, I’m happily writing, and tomorrow, I’ll be reading about me being a writer. Ha ha!
Here’s an advance review of the book. It is an effective motivational tool. Merely having a copy now has motivated me to write this real quick blog post, and it has made me more of a fan of Jeff. And I think I have just done something really important about being a writer.
I wrote! I am a writer! 🙂
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
Please leave me a message, or post them, at my Facebook Page.
by The Happy WAHM
It’s always fun to run a giveaway! And this one is extra fun for me as I’ll be giving away an unlimited class pass to the WAHM Weekend Expo happening on October 25. Yey!
The WAHM community has grown exponentially in the past two years, from the time that the first WAHMderful Workshop was organized in 2012, and it continues to grow every day. More and more professionals are now opting to work from home to escape the horrors of the daily commute. Mothers who have been staying at home to care for their children are now actively pursuing income-generating activities to help out with the family finances. In fact, we are no longer limiting this event to just WAHMs. Everybody’s invited to join us this year, so you can explore the possibility of engaging in a business, or practicing your profession, from the comfort of your home.
So who is everybody?
You, who are a gainfully employed head of the family, but dreaming of spending more time with your little ones because you are missing out on their milestones.
You, who are employed in a company you hate because you are doing tasks you no longer enjoy.
You, who are a creative person but stuck in a technical job.
You, who wake up at 4 am to get to your desk at 7am, and leave your desk at 5pm, but reach home at 8pm. Darn traffic!
You, who had to miss your daughter’s birthday party because the boss called for a strategic planning on a weekend.
You, who spend almost half your gross salary on transportation, lunch allowance and wardrobe.
You, who have to sacrifice your privacy so you can have a helper to cook your food, clean your house, and take care of your children.
But maybe you are not any of the persons above. Maybe you just want to be able to work in bed, or at the park, with your bare feet up, without a bra, hair going all directions, and not care. Or maybe you just want to be able to go see a movie or run your errands on a weekday to avoid long queues. Or maybe you just want to make everyday cuddle day with your little ones. Or homeschool!
Whoever you are, and whatever is your motivation, you are invited!
What’s in store for you then?
Here’s how the program looks like. Yey! I’m one of the speakers, see?
10:00 to 10:45 am
Business Ideation: Profitable Business Ideas (Speaker: Jeff Cua)
How to Land your First Virtual Assistant Gig (Speaker: Marge Aberasturi)
11:00 to 11:45 am
Managing your Kids while Working at Home (Speaker: Mariel Uyquiengco)
How to Get (and Keep!) Your Freelance Writing Jobs (Speaker: Tina Rodriguez)
1:00 to 1:45 pm
How To Succeed & Not Suck at Social Media Management (Speaker: Engr. Grace Bondad Nicolas)
Money Smarts: Beginner Level Investing & Personal Finance (Speaker: Fitz Villafuerte)
2:00 to 2:45 pm
Legalizing Your Business the Hassle-Free Way (Speaker: Dandy C. Victa)
Retailing Business: Branding and Word of Mouth Through C2C (Speaker: Govind Daswani)
3:00 to 3:45 pm
Computer 101: How to Use and Care for your Investment (Speaker: Jennyfer Ang Tan)
Be a Photo Editor: Basic Photo Editing & Photography Jobs (Speaker: Kimberley Timbol-Reyes)
4:00 to 4:45 pm
How to Create a Winning Business Plan & Reach your Perfect Clients (Speaker: Joy Gurtiza)
Eating Right & Easy Meals when you’re a Busy-holic (Speaker: Lourdes Labii)
And here’s what your investment will look like:
Entrance Fee (will not attend any talk; fees apply to those who are 21 years old and above only. Children are free to enter): Php 100
Workshop pass (need not pay entrance fee separately):
Php 350 to attend 1 class/topic
Php 900 to attend 3 classes/topics
Php 1500 for an unlimited class pass
But, wait! I did say that I’m running a giveaway right? So I’m actually giving one (1) unlimited class pass to one lucky winner! Just join the fun at the link below. And please spread the love by sharing this link with your friends. Even if you don’t get lucky, you would have helped a friend.
I’m going to draw the lucky winner on October 17, so there’s still time for you to submit your entry, and help me spread the word.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
And because I’m in a giving mood, as I always am, I’m throwing in a little extra. If you help me spread the word about the giveaway, and the person you shared it with gets lucky and wins the pass, you, my dear, are going to get The Happy WAHM bag, pictured below. 🙂 You can also register for the WAHM Expo here.
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
Please leave me a message, or post them, at my Facebook Page.
