The Journey. It’s Mine.

While in LB last week, paypal announced that it is now possible to withdraw funds to Philippine bank accounts. How cool is that?

I’ve been doing online banking for 10 years now, but this is - by far - the coolest.

I didn’t want to hit the crowded shops and malls this year, so I did my little Christmas shopping online.

However, I bumped into too many walls because I wanted to use paypal funds–  most sites I encountered only ship within the U.S. — therefore I stopped looking and shopping for stuff I wanted for myself and decided to just buy stuff for the two kids in my family (Raine  and my nephew Glenn).

Good thing I discovered Barnes & Noble. BUT, it wasn’t easy as well. I almost canceled all the items I ordered (a little over 100$) because shipment was delayed for more than a couple of days. Then customer service contacted me that by the time they received the cancellation, the items already left their warehouse.

It’s already Friday tomorrow and Monday night is already Christmas Eve, no package arrived yet. Gosh, I may have to call Santa’s emergency line to expedite the shipment more. OR I may have to just buy goodies as substitute sock-filler until the ordered items arrive.

I didn’t want to stress myself with Christmas shopping, but got stressed anyway. I guess there’s just no escaping the stress with all the buzz and rush of the holiday season.

But then I guess ordering online is much much better than kid’s toys and stuff here that have probably been recalled because of lead content but were sold anyway. Well, what can we expect, this is the Philippines, and we have a back door to Chinese and other smugglers.

BESIDES, I don’t want to complain anymore of increased selling prices of local items and the lower (and still getting lower and lower) peso exchange to the US dollar.

Hey, any Christmas shopping nightmare this year? I hope not.

At last, I was able to withdraw a few minutes ago, my “stale” paypal funds to my EON VISA Electron card.

Total period it took since I claimed that EON VISA from a Unionbank branch: 1 month (give or take a couple of days).

No complains really, because half of it was my fault:

• I didn’t call my branch sooner– I could have claimed the card two weeks earlier.
• i didn’t deposit funds to my card when I claimed it — thereby delaying my adding the card (using for verification of) to my paypal account.
• Since the branch is almost two hours away, I just waited for my moneybookers funds to arrived which I then withdrew to the EON account. I only verified my paypal account on Wednesday last week (Nov 27).

30 minutes ago I called UBP’s Customer Service to retrieve my paypal EXPUSE number. Got it and was able to withdraw my paypal money.

Now I have to wait and see if it is really 5-7 business days before my card is credited. Hopefully shorter!

AND all that trouble because I dumped my credit cards the same time I dumped my day job. Sigh.

Since the recent full paypal support in the Philippines (withdrawal to credit/debit cards and U.S. bank accounts only), I’ve been closely following what netrepeneurs and professional bloggers are saying about it. I’ve taken note of which credit/debits card will work.

Highly recommended is Unionbank(UBP)’s EON Cyber Account that comes with a VISA Electron card. I do not have credit cards anymore since i left my day job (March 2006) and the fact that credit card cash advance fees are quite hefty, I reckon debit cards are quite handy aside from its cheap withdrawal and maintenance fees — making debit cards more lucrative for paypal withdrawals here in the Philippines.

The only bank here in Sorsogon that offers a VISA Electron card attached to your bank account is Equitable PCI (EPCI) Bank. However, since this bank was recently acquired by Banco de Oro (BDO), issuance of VISA Electron cards has been suspended. Besides, BDO carries the Mastercard logo only.

Anyways… so I applied for an EON cyber account online, i think the first week of October, hoping that the UBP branch in Legaspi will call me once the card arrived ready for pick-up.

I read somewhere that they will call. No call arrived. I called them last week (i found the branch’s contact numbers in the website) and my card was already available.

Picked it up last Friday, the card arrived Oct. 19. Now, I’ve yet to verify my paypal account (and withdraw the funds already received from the recent pay cycle from using paypal as the only form of payment), my VISA card is still not activated. (48 hours activation daw, naipit ng weekend so baka by Wednesday pa!)

I thought I was weeks ahead in securing a VISA card. I should have called UBP-Legaspi earlier.

I hate waiting. The only good thing I’m seeing, maybe the dollar-peso exchange rate will become better by a few cents. But that may be even impossible by the way the peso has been getting stronger kuno these past months.