The Lady Programmer

Not all ATM/debit cards in the Philippines work with Paypal. There are some credit cards that work for verification, but I have not successfully identified which credit cards that work. But for those who do not own any credit card, then the Unionbank EON card is the only card that can work well for Paypal verification.

Many new Unionbank EON card users are not able to successfully continue with the verification process in Paypal. Even if they got the new card at hand and activated, Paypal would still return the message that it cannot verify the card. This could be frustrating, because it is not really so easy to wait for the Unionbank EON card then finding out that it would not work with Paypal verification.

I think this has something to do with a minor bug on Unionbank EON debit card. The card has to contain any transaction history, even just for one entry before it can be used for Paypal verification. One way to create transaction history is to deposit funds over-the-counter.

Paypal takes away a verification fee of $1.95 from the Unionbank EON bank account, so put in funds that will cover more than this fee in Pesos. If successful this verification fee goes into the Paypal account after a few weeks. If the Paypal verification does not work successfully then the amount deducted by Paypal will be returned in full to your Unionbank EON bank account.

Remember that the Unionbank EON debit card is simply needed for verifying Paypal so that funds can be withdrawn to any Philippine bank account by electronic funds transfer.

For new Payoneer users, withdrawing money from an ATM can be quite frustrating – if you find out that you cannot fully withdraw your hard earned cash from oDesk (or from other site). Getting “insufficient funds” message in the ATM is something of a concern – because aside from getting stumped at needing the funds to spend for some expenses or want, “insufficient funds” deducts around $0.90 each time.

I’ve experienced a series of insufficient funds too, before I was able to withdraw funds off successfully from my Payoneer account. From those several uses with the Payoneer card, I finally set out to always leave at least P500 within my Payoneer account.

image credit to Adam Sonnett

• Always do a balance inquiry first before a withdrawal. Each balance inquiry done with the Payoneer card is entirely free, I get to decide the amount that I need to withdraw.
• Withdraw funds at P500 less than the amount that you have seen during balance inquiry.

If you have a $75 funds loaded in the Payoneer card, then doing a balance inquiry at any Mastercard ATM should show around P3,000 (depending on the Mastercard exchange rate for the day). The amount that can be withdrawn from the card should only be P2,500 so that “insufficient funds” message will not appear.

I’ve tried leaving funds from P100 to P300 which covers enough of the $2.15 withdrawal charge that Payoneer takes away, but I still get “insufficient funds” message and get deducted. I have not tried leaving at least P400 in my account, so I do not have any idea whether “insufficient funds” will still bug me at that amount.

I am happy with my Paypal to Unionbank withdrawals. I have not encounter any problems with it. My withdrawals are always on time except when US gets on a holiday. I always get my Paypal withdrawals to my Unionbank EON account in only three business days (not the five to seven business days that Paypal states in their website): one business day for Paypal to process the withdrawal and two business days to my Unionbank account.

photo credit: gabriel77 (SXC)

Let me give a recap of some of the fees that involve Paypal to Unionbank withdrawals:

• Paypal to Unionbank
• P50 for withdrawals less than P7,000 (Paypal to Philippine bank account)
• FREE for withdrawals in excess of P7,000 (Paypal to Philippine bank account)
• $5 for Paypal to debit or credit card withdrawals
• incoming fund transfer (fee when funds are received by Unionbank): FREE (other banks like BDO and BPI charges around P200 incoming fund transfer fee)
• charges per successful ATM withdrawal:
• withdrawal from Unionbank ATMs: free for first three withdrawals, P10.00 applies after third withdrawal
• withdrawal from non-Unionbank ATMs within the Philippines: P12.00

Lets illustrate a $50 withdrawal from Paypal:

• assume $1 = P43 as exchange rate settings in Paypal, the value of $50becomes P2,150 which Paypal converts.
• since the funds to be withdrawn is less than P7,000 the P50 is deducted from the total amount, so P2,100 is transferred to the Unionbank account
• Unionbank does not charge any incoming EFT fees (unlike BDO and BPI), so expect to receive the whole P2,100 in your bank account.
• EACH successful withdrawal of this amount in a Unionbank ATM costs P10.00; but using other non-Unionbank ATMs costs P12.00 per withdrawal: you get only P2000 to P2100 for this withdrawal

Now lets see what $200 withdrawal from Paypal costs:

• assume $1 = P43 as exchange rate settings in Paypal, the value of $200 becomes P8,600 from the Paypal conversion.
• since the funds exceed P7,000 Paypal withdrawal is FREE, so the entire P8,600 is transferred to the Unionbank account
• Unionbank does not charge any incoming EFT fees (unlike BDO and BPI), so expect to receive the whole P8,600 in your bank account.
• if the ATM has a withdrawal limit of P4,000, then it takes three times to withdraw the amount; so P10.00 (using Unionbank ATM) and P12.00 (using other Philippine ATMs) will cost P30.00 and P36.00 debited from one’s account.

Bonus Tip: Use Smart Money to Withdraw Unionbank EON Funds

One effective and more convenient way that I’ve been using for sometime is to make use of Smart Money to perform the mobile banking. Smart Money provides me the convenience of doing balance inquiry away from the ATM and at the same time lets me perform immediate money transfers from my Unionbank EON bank account to my Smart Money card. What I really like about the Smart Money is that withdrawals are now FREE from any BDO ATM machine (which is found throughout the country). All I need to pay is the P2.50 airtime and I got it all in my Smart Money account.

I’ve been seeing this in my Payoneer account lately: load money with Western Union. I’ve seen this while I was doing a fund transfer from Paypal to Payoneer account. This is a new option that was not available before.

Before Western Union is available, Payoneer cards are usually loaded using US bank accounts and credit cards. I have not tried any of these to load my card – I often got it loaded through Paypal transfers and earnings from several freelance sites.

Western Union transfers are currenly available only in the US. I hope this gets to be available in the Philippines too.

UPDATED: February 17, 2009

I’ve found out a quicker way to verify Paypal account without using a Unionbank EON card. If you happen to own a Payoneer card then you might want to verify your account using this card because the entire process only took me less than five minutes to complete. The Paypal expanded use (EXPUSE) number, which is used to change the status of Paypal accounts from “unverified” to “verified”, is reflected immediately in my online account at Payoneer’s website.

Using a Unionbank EON card to verify Paypal has a lot of disadvantages. A person had to wait for a few days up to more than a week before calling up the bank’s customer service for the EXPUSE number. Calling up the bank’s customer service is often difficult: a Unionbank customer often needs to call up several times to get through a customer service representative. The only option that the customer could find out the EXPUSE number is to make several attempts to reach the customer service to follow up the request.

Remember, you can opt to maintain an unverified Paypal account to receive payments. However, if you need to withdraw the funds to a Philippine bank account then Paypal verification is always needed.

Before doing the procedure, you need $1.95 or more in your Payoneer account for the verification process. That amount will be refunded back to your Paypal account. If you need to know how to load funds into your Payoneer account, then read this post on ways on how to load funds into a Payoneer card.

I’ve outlined the step-by-step procedure that I had followed:

1. Login to Paypal. Create a Paypal account if you do not have one yet.
2. Make sure My Account tab is active; if not, click on that tab.
3. Under the heading My Account Overview, click the link that says Unverified just beside the Status.
4. This will enable you to enter a card and verify it. Take your Payoneer card and enter all the card details that are asked on the screen. Guide instructions are provided on the screen.
5. Login to your Payoneer account and get the Paypal EXPUSE (expanded use) number that is shown in your list of transactions (View Transactions). It is a four-digit number within your transaction history that looks like PP *nnnn Expuse where nnnn is the four-digit number assigned by Paypal. (click the image below for a closer look)
   
6. Return to Paypal by logging in again. Enter the given four-digit number in the transaction statement to your Paypal account by logging in again to your account, under Link and Confirm Card. If this is successful then your status should change to Verified. (click the image below for a closer look)
   

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