Paypal and the RCBC Mercury Drug MyWallet Card

(Photo by Toban Black)

Once again, I've received a message from somebody asking for advice on what to do because her Paypal withdrawal to her RCBC Mercury Drug MyWallet card is taking forever to appear in her bank account.

So I'm posting this article to tell you all right now: stop trying to use the RCBC Mercury Drug MyWallet card for your Paypal transactions! It has a bad track record as far as I could see from comments I've received so far on my old article, Withdrawing from Paypal to Metrobank, BDO, and RCBC.

It's true that some people have reported successful transactions for the abovementioned card. But there are also others writing with panic in their "voices":

HI.. ask ko lang nag withdraw ako sa RCBC Mercury Drug MyWallet Card nung Oct, 22 pero hanggang ngayon d pa cia dumadating. ano kaya ang problema bakit ang tagal yata ng delay.. hangang ilang araw ba ang maximum transaction period sa ganito.. slamat..

This comment was sent on October 31, nine days since the reported transaction. Paypal transactions normally take a maximum of five days from the moment you withdraw your money from the Paypal portal to the time your money appears in your bank account.

Or, to be more specific, when you withdraw your money, the transaction appears as "Pending" for about 1 to 2 banking days (holidays and weekends not included). Then it appears as "Completed," meaning that Paypal has completed the paperwork or whatever it does in its back office.

Two to four days after it shows as "Completed," it should appear in your bank account.

In my experience, if I withdraw from Paypal on Monday, the money appears in my bank account on Thursday morning.

Here's another comment:

5 days na eh hindi pa rin dumadating ang CASH from my PAYPAL to my MY WALLET VISA CARD.'.'.' Gaano katagal poh ba ang mga transaction na ganito?

And the most recent one, which came today and prompted me to write this article:

hello po, pwedi nyo po ba ako matulungan. I have a mercury drug my wallet visa card and I successfully linked it to paypal. Nag withdraw po ako nang pera from my paypal balance to my card the problem is hindi pa rin dumadating yung pera ko hanggang ngayon..malapit na mag one month from my withdrawal. .nag withdraw ako last dec. 28, 2011. Completed na yung status. I've been emailing RCBC customer service at sabi nila di pa raw sila nakakatanggap any funds from paypal. Ano po ba dapat ko gawin? baka mawala yung pera ko 

My advice to this last commenter was that she should request a formal statement or document from Paypal, so that she can show it to her bank, to prove that the money has been received by the bank.

She should also get a formal statement from the bank stating that they received no such amount from Paypal.

If she's lucky, her money will be returned to her Paypal account, minus P250 charge for the failed transaction.

That was my advice to her -- but to the rest of you, my advice is this:

Avoid getting into such problematic situations in the first place by simply getting a Unionbank EON card if you can't get a credit card to verify your Paypal account.

Unionbank has a formal arrangement with Paypal; their EON card is the only card I know that makes no deductions whatsoever on the amount you transfer from Paypal. The EON card has zero maintaining balance, though you do have to pay P350 per year to keep using the card.

I have been using my EON card for my Paypal transactions without any problems whatsoever for the last year.

Now, when you apply for your EON card, you may have to wait for two weeks before you get it (never mind that the teller said it would be ready in one week; chances are, you'll have to wait two weeks or more nonetheless -- but it's better to wait for a card for three weeks than to wait for money you transferred from Paypal to MyWallet for a month or more, right?)

Of course, I have my own complaints with the Unionbank EON card: if you try to use it for paying online purchases, it sometimes fails, even when it is sufficiently funded. It has failed me when I tried to use it to buy tickets online from Cebu Pacific. It failed me, too, when I tried to use it to pay for a home study course in California.

But as far as Paypal is concerned, if you don't have a credit card and a regular bank account, the Unionbank EON card is definitely your very best option.

More about the EON card here: How to Use Your UnionBank EON Account

DISCLOSURE: The Nanay Notebook has absolutely no affiliation with Unionbank. Know more about this blog's policy on sponsors and affiliates in our disclosure statement.

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How to Use Your UnionBank EON Account

*file image from the UnionBank EON page

Question: Do I have to apply for an ATM account to be linked to EON? Or is EON is just like an ATM account but used more for online transactions? Is it funded through online only, or can it be funded over the counter?

Answer: No, you do not have to apply for an ATM account to be linked to EON. EON is an ATM account, but functions as a debit card, not a savings account.

How is it similar to a savings account? Well, you can deposit over the counter.

How is it different from a savings account? Well, since it's a debit card, not a savings account, (1) it does not earn interest, and (2) you have to pay an annual fee of P350 to maintain the card. There is no maintaining balance.

How do you fund your EON account through online transactions, i.e. PayPal? 

1. Use your EON card as a debit card to verify your PayPal account. Simply hover over Profile, then click on Add/Edit Credit Card, then input your EON card number -- the big numbers near the middle of the card -- when PayPal asks for your debit card number.
   
   
2. Add your EON bank account to your PayPal profile. Again, hover on Profile, then click Add/Edit Bank Account. This time, when PayPal asks for your account number, you use the smaller ones at the lower left corner of the card.
    
3. PayPal will give you instructions on how to complete the verification process. Once you are verified, you will be able to transfer your funds from PayPal to your EON bank account with zero charges from UnionBank.

By the way, if you transfer from PayPal to your bank and you see Completed in the transaction, do not expect to see the funds in your bank account immediately. Completed means PayPal has completed the process of releasing your money, but that does not necessarily mean the bank has completed the process of releasing the funds to your account.

My experience is if I transfer money from PayPal to my bank on, say, Tuesday night, it will reflect as Completed on PayPal on Wednesday and show up on the account by Saturday morning.

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The PayPal Saga: Payment Refunded to Buyer!

So the nightmare has culminated. After all the documents I sent PayPal to prove that the buyer had indeed received the almost-6,000-pesos worth of GCash he had paid for via PayPal, PayPal still decided to refund the money to him. (The document was an e-mail from Globe itself indicating that the amounts had been received by the party in question.)


That was in December 31, 2010—almost two weeks ago.

And despite the buyer's assurance that he would simply refund via bank deposit, his previously accessible phone has gone permanently unavailable. And three e-mails from a week ago have gone unanswered. What's a girl to think?

My mistake was this: I should have required a scanned ID and not just relied on the PayPal verification process. (To all you online sellers, let this be a lesson to you too.) The scanned ID would have proven to PayPal that the PayPal transactions were indeed done by the PayPal owner and not some hacker.

But lesson learned. I am truly thankful to God that, at this point, six thousand pesos is no longer very painful to me. There was a time it would have killed me. Now, the only difference it makes is that the kids will have to wait longer for that bike and sidecar that we could have used to enjoy the sunny afternoons around the village.

UPDATE: To date (March 4, 2011), the buyer has not communicated with us. But thank you, God. The children have their bikes, and we are able to enjoy the sunny afternoons around the village!

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Using PayPal? Protect Yourself

So one thing I've learned this weekend is that PayPal can get trigger happy. (Actually, my favorite client told me that. And his statement was based on personal experience.)

And though PayPal is quick to file cases for the smallest reasons, they're not always as quick to resolve them, despite all the user's evidence and cooperation . . .

72 hours and counting. Refresh inbox. Refresh inbox. Refresh inbox. No luck; no replies from PayPal.

For you who are wondering what I'm griping about, you can read it here: PayPal Troubles, GCash Store Temporarily Closed.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned right now, PayPal sucks big time. BUT it's still the biggest and, as far as I know, the most secure network out there for transferring money. In fact, I am forced to admit its trigger happiness probably benefits more people than it hurts.

Probably.

The good thing about all this is that I've learned a new lesson in life. Here is what I've learned on how to protect yourself from PayPal:

Lesson 1: Use the PayPal Invoice. Whether or not that thing you're selling falls under the buyer/seller protection clause, still always use the PayPal invoicing system. Most customers will let you pass the charges to them anyway. It's still often cheaper and more convenient for them to pay extra charges than get out of the house and pay through a bank.

Now using the PayPal invoice system won't protect you 100 percent, because I've seen stories of people still getting problems with PayPal despite using the invoice system -- heck, in one of the transactions they have on my case, I had used the invoice system -- but it does somewhat lessen your risks. I think.

Lesson 2: Don't keep more money in your PayPal account than you can afford to lose. Never mind the fact that you have to pay 50 pesos every time you withdraw less than 7,000 pesos from PayPal.

If PayPal gets antsy while your thousands are still there, it could suddenly take that money, and you can kiss it good-bye. I say it's better to lose 50 pesos now and again rather than risk losing Php 6,999 in one blow.

If your balance is zero and PayPal suddenly decides to hold some payments that had been sent to you five and a half months ago, then your PayPal account will simply turn negative.

Then if PayPal decides for some reason to send the money back to the buyer instead of returning it to you after the hold, then PayPal might hound you with letters asking you to pay them back for the refund; but as everybody knows, those letters can't really hurt you. (Of course, I'm presuming here that you really are an honest seller, and that the refund was unfair.)

Lesson 3: Upgrade your account to Business. If you're a high-risk user, i.e., you're using PayPal to sell things online, make sure you upgrade your account to Business. After all, it's free.

The reason is this: you are not allowed to have more than one personal account in PayPal, but you are allowed to have a separate business account and a personal account. If your business account gets problematic, then you'll have a personal account you can still use.

But this is the caveat: each account must be connected to different bank and credit card accounts. You can't use for your personal account a credit card or bank account that is already linked to your business account. And you can't remove bank or credit card accounts from your PayPal account if a case is ongoing.

Which leads us to . . .

Lesson 4: Never link more than one bank or credit card account to any single PayPal account. My mistake was that all my bank accounts were linked to my original account, so when I needed to open a new one that I could use, I had no bank accounts or credit cards I could link the new one to.

Lesson 5: Do not link your PayPal account to your eBay account in such a way that you allow PayPal to get funds from your bank or credit card to automatically pay for purchases you make on eBay. This kind of authorization may not only allow them to get money from your bank to pay for eBay purchases but for other things they think you should rightly pay for as well -- such as if your buyer claims you did not deliver a good to them (even if you did) and asks files a case for refund with PayPal. In this case, zeroing out your PayPal funds will not help because PayPal can simply get money from your bank account or credit card.

Lesson 6: Have a UnionBank EON account for PayPal. Whenever possible, the credit card or bank account you link with PayPal should be the one you can most easily close out. A UnionBank EON account is easy to close out.

Lesson 7: For refunds, use the refund button. Unfortunately, this is only available if somebody indicates when he sends you the PayPal funds that he is paying for an item he bought from you. It is not available for personal payments.

But remember: if somebody sends you money, don't send it back, except through a refund button. This is what triggered my PayPal case, I suspect. PayPal thought I was helping somebody get a cash advance from his credit card using the PayPal system.

(No, I wasn't. As far as I know and believe even until now, that person didn't even use his credit card in that transaction. He sent it from funds already existing in his PayPal account. That's what he told me, and that's what I believe until I have evidence to the contrary.)

Lesson 8: Do not use your PayPal while you are in a country different from the one where you registered it in. If you've always used your PayPal in the Philippines, don't use it while you are in, say, Canada. Open a Canada account instead.

Otherwise, they may think somebody in Canada has hacked your account, and they will freeze everything for about three months. (This happened to my favorite client, when he accessed his Canada account from India.)

Lesson 9: Always get a scanned image of a government ID from your online buyer. It should be unmodified. The "Date Created" in the Properties should be exactly the same as the "Date Last Modified." This is such an easy step nowadays: you could take a picture of your ID with a digicam and it's done. Tell them to make it low resolution and black-and-white if they're worried about identity theft. If they're unwilling to give this requirement, they're probably scammers anyway.

So those are my tips for protecting yourself from PayPal. I still think PayPal can be a darned useful service. For one, I could never get paid by my clients without it.

I just wish they would resolve my issue soon -- even just half as fast as it took for them to create it, that would be fine!

Live and learn.

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PayPal Troubles, GCash Store Temporarily Closed

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from PayPal that forms part of every e-tailer's nightmare:

Hello (my full name),

To protect you from problematic transactions, we sometimes request additional information about PayPal payments.

We need more information about this transaction. Please log in to your PayPal account, click the "Resolution Center" tab, and provide more information by 12/24/2010.

We recommend that you not ship the item until our investigation is complete. If you've already shipped the item, please log in and let us know where you shipped it.

We have placed a temporary hold on the funds until we complete our investigation.

Summary: "We have found reason to be suspicious of a transaction that went on in your PayPal account, and to protect ourselves from chargeback, we have decided to hold all funds from the involved account until we have decided whether to give it back to you or refund the buyer."

The thing is this: I don't keep funds in my PayPal. The moment they're in, I send them right to the bank, because that's the only way I can spend them.

So what happens is PayPal takes away money that isn't there, and I end up with a negative balance that will eat up whatever comes into my account.

Wonderful news for Christmas season. And two days before the writers are due to get paid ... GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

(Dear writers, don't worry. I will find a way. Rather, the Boss will make one. He always does. Still, I'm sure even Moses' blood pressure rose slightly as the horse hoofs came thundering and he came face to face with that ocean.)

"So what happened, Blessie?" you may be asking.

Well, I'm not sure, but I suspect it's this: one of my old-time clients sent advance payment to reserve GCash. The problem was, the stock had already run out, as usual, so I had to send the exact same amount back.

Since the payment was sent voluntarily, not requested for, there was no "Refund" button. As far as PayPal could see, what happened was somebody sent me money, and I sent it back for no apparent reason.

And PayPal thought I was helping this person get cash advance from his credit card this way. (Yes, it's a he, and a very nice-sounding he, too, but he's married, ladies, so I can't introduce you). And that's not allowed under their terms.

Hence, the inconvenient investigation.

How long does such an investigation take? PayPal says it could take as long as 180 days. Fortunately, PayPal has operations on Saturday and Sunday as well, so at least it's not 180 working days.

But the gist is, the money I'm using to buy the GCash that I sell to you, loyal patrons, is completely trapped in PayPal. Please pray with me that this issue gets sorted out, well, by Monday, so that operations could return to normal.

In the meantime, we wait.

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Withdrawing from Paypal to Metrobank, BDO, and RCBC

As mentioned in a previous post, this Filipino mom (me) has successfully withdrawn her Paypal funds to her Metrobank account using this bank code/routing number: 026002846.

The money took about three working days to reach me, and Metrobank deducted 77 pesos (if my calculations are correct) from my account.

This time, I tried withdrawing to my BDO account. The bank code/routing number I used for BDO was 010530667, a routing number that I got from http://pages.ebay.ph/bankwithdrawal/bank_codes_ph.html.

The transaction was successful too. It took about five working days, and BDO deducted 200 pesos from my account (this time, I'm sure my calculations are correct).

I think the discrepancy between the Metrobank deduction and the BDO one could have been due to the fact that the bank code for Metrobank routed to a New York address, while the bank code for BDO must have routed to a Philippine address. This is what I suspect, although I am not sure.

I must admit that at first, I was hesitant to use the 010530667 routing number for BDO because, if you will take a closer look at the web page where I got it from, you will notice that the Metrobank routing number listed there is different from the one that Metrobank had given me and which I successfully used.

But I had no choice because when I called BDO to get their routing number directly from them, they were completely unaware that they had a routing number and kept insisting that we cannot transfer our PayPal funds to their bank.

I even tried calling again, hoping to reach a more knowledgeable customer service agent, but apparently, they are all equally uninformed. So I had to trust what I could find online.

Thank goodness it worked!

I've also tried withdrawing to my RCBC (commercial bank, not savings bank) account. I used the routing number 010280014, which I found in the link I gave above. It worked too. That's the second time that the routing number I got from that link worked, so I think it would be pretty safe to presume that the info there is correct.

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Using PayPal in the Philippines

Congratulate me! This Filipino mom has just had her first successful Paypal transaction, to withdraw money I earned from Elance.

I've had this account for more than a year but never got to use it before because I didn't have a credit card.

You need a credit card to get verified at PayPal. If your account is unverified, you can receive money, but you can never withdraw the money from PayPal to your bank.

(Addendum: Here's a more recent article on how to get money out of PayPal if you don't have a credit card.)

So, I got myself a credit card just so I could withdraw my PayPal funds.

Routing numbers

Now the most important thing you need to know when you want to transfer your PayPal money to your Philippine bank account is your bank's routing number.

Here is a list of routing numbers that I got from http://pages.ebay.ph/bankwithdrawal/bank_codes_ph.html.

BANK NAME	9 digit bank code
ALLIED BANKING CORP	010320013
AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND	010700015
ASIA UNITED BANK	011020011
BANGKO SENTRAL NG PILIPINAS	010030015
BANGKOK BANK	010670019
BANK OF AMERICA	010120019
BANK OF CHINA	011140014
BANK OF TOKYO	010460012
BANCO DE ORO (& EPCIB)	010530667
BANK OF COMMERCE	010440016
BANK OF THE PHIL ISLANDS	010040018
CHINA BANKING CORP	010100013
CHINA TRUST COMML BANK	010690015
CITIBANK N.A.	010070017
DEVT BANK OF THE PHILS	010590018
DEUTSCHE BANK	010650013
EAST WEST BANK	010620014
EXPORT & INDUSTRY BANK	010860010
FUJI BANK	010640010
HONGKONG AND SHANGHAI BANK	010060014
INTL COMML BANK OF CHINA	010560019
INTL EXCHANGE BANK	010680012
JP MORGAN CHASE BANK	010720011
KOREA EXCHANGE BANK	010710018
INTL NEDERLAND BANK	010660016
LAND BANK OF THE PHILS	010350025
MAYBANK OF THE PHILS	010220016
METROPOLITAN BANK & TRUST CO	010269996
PHIL BANK OF COMMUNICATION	010110016
PHIL TRUST COMPANY	010090039
PHIL NATIONAL BANK	010080010
PRUDENTIAL BANK	010150018
PHIL VETERANS BANK	010330016
RIZAL COMML BANKING CORP	010280014
SECURITY BANK & TRUST CO	010140015
STANDARD CHARTERED BANK	010050011
UNITED COCONUT PLANTERS BANK	010299995
UNION BANK OF THE PHILS	010419995
UNITED OVERSEAS BANK	010270189

I've tried using the routing numbers given above for Metrobank, BDO, RCBC, and UnionBank, and they all worked.

How long and how much?

It took PayPal 1 day to change my withdrawal status in my PayPal dashboard from Pending to Completed.

"Completed" means that PayPal has sent out the money. It does not mean that the money has reached your bank.

It took 2 more days before the money was credited to my Metrobank account, and Metrobank deducted a service charge of, it seems, 76.7 pesos.

Note: BDO and RCBC deduct P200. UnionBank has a partnership with PayPal, so they don't deduct anything from your PayPal funds.

But remember that if you withdraw less than P7,000, PayPal will deduct P50 from your money before even sending it to the bank.

So I try to wait until I can withdraw P7,000, then withdraw to my UnionBank account, and I get the whole amount intact.

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