EON. A Paypal user’s pal.

DISCLAIMER: This article assumes you already know what Paypal is and how it works. Also, this article is relevant only if you live in the Philippines.

A lot of home-based workers are paid through Paypal. But what the hell is EON? Why should I know more about it if I’m a Paypal user? That’s exactly what this article is for. Keep reading.

EON is a Union Bank product of sorts. It is their most modern way of getting people to open an account with them, fuss-free. And compared to how you normally open a bank account, it truly is fuss-free.

• Only one valid ID is needed.
• No need to go to the bank and wait in line. And even if you do go there, you can’t even open an EON account through them. I’ve tried.
• 150 pesos to open an account. Technically it’s only 100 pesos. I’ll get to that later.
• No maintaining balance.

Before I tell you why you should use EON if you’re using Paypal for receiving money, let me just swiftly outline the steps you go about making an EON account.

1. Go to either a 711 or Mini-stop convenience store and buy an EON card. (150 pesos)
2. Download the EON app on your smartphone.
3. Using the app, follow the instructions to activate your card.

That’s it. As far as I know, your EON account is an actual Union Bank account. I’ve already managed to transfer money from EON to another Union Bank account several times, even completing the transfer the same day, with no extra fees.

Going back to the “why” question, allow me to be a bit rude and answer your question with a question: How much does your bank charge you every time you withdraw money from Paypal to them? I have a BPI account and I can tell you, they charge you about 150 pesos every single transfer, regardless of amount. This is typical, of course. But if you think about it, that means BPI would be taking almost 4,000 pesos from me every year. I’m not sure how much other banks charge, but it wouldn’t be absurd to assume it’s around the amount.

With that said, here are some benefits you get using EON:

ZERO CHARGES FROM PAYPAL – You read it right. ZERO. There is but one condition to satisfy, though, but it’s really easy. The transfer amount must be 7,000 pesos or more. If you’re withdrawing less, it’s still not that bad. It’s just 50 pesos. Way better than the usual fees.

TWO DAY TRANSFERS (sometimes) – Typical waiting time is 2-4 days for any other bank, and 99% of the time you got it after 3 or 4 days. It is only through EON that I have experienced my money being available for withdrawal after only just 2 days. It’s not the case every single time, but the possible reduced waiting time is nice.

RIDICULOUSLY SECURE – Like any bank providing online services, you can access your account using a browser or a mobile app. Why is EON more secure than others? Every single time you log in to your account, they send you a verification code to your phone that you have to key in before you are allowed access. At first, I complained because of this inconvenience, but later I realized it’s more of a plus. There is ZERO chance of your account getting hacked.

LOST YOUR CARD? – You remember how alarming and frustrating it is when you lose your ATM card? You’re looking at weeks waiting for a replacement and several bank visits. With EON, you can skip that and just buy a new card, link it with your existing EON account and you’re good to go! Remember to call in first and get your lost card deactivated, though.

EON COMPLEMENTS COINS.PH – If you haven’t read my post about coins.ph, you can read it here (it opens a new tab). If you already have an account, you’ll be glad to hear that you can transfer spare change (amounts below 100 pesos) from your EON account to your coins.ph account FREE. Well, coins.ph actually charges a minimum of 10 pesos but they give it back to you when the transaction completes. Pretty useful if you either dabble with Bitcoin or if you have a prepaid phone especially now that they have a 10% rebate on reloads.

Some caveats you should know.

• This is very important. Get your account upgraded IMMEDIATELY if you do get an EON account. On activation, your account would be on Starter level which can only receive amounts up to 5,000 pesos. The next level, EON Lite, can receive up to 100,000 pesos.
• There is an 8 peso annual fee for Starter and Lite level accounts. Not monthly, ANNUALLY. Not a bad deal at all.
• The EON card is 150 pesos and you can buy it from any MiniStop or 711 store. You have to tell the cashier to really look for it because most of them don’t even know they are selling EON cards. Once activated, you will already have 50 pesos in it.

Finally, how do you withdraw it? The EON card is an ATM card, ninny. Yes, you can withdraw from any Bancnet or Megalink ATM. Regardless of which ATM you use, there is a 15 peso fee. And yes, this includes Union Bank ATMs.

With all that said, do yourself a favor and get an EON account. It takes minutes to get one and get it activated. If you want to know more about EON, I’ve provided a link below. Note that it goes through AdFly. If you liked this post, just wait for the button at the upper right to load so you can proceed to the EON quick info site.

And please feel free to share this post to your home-based groups or networks.

EON experience website

PS – I’m not sure if I want to make a intensive guide on how to actually get an EON account. If you guys want it, you can let me know by leaving me a message. As always, happy hunting!

When things surprisingly work out somehow. A Verbit.ai update.

If you read my earlier post about Verbit.ai but you haven’t tried it yet, it’s important that you read on.

If you haven’t read my earlier post, read here. I had the “bright idea” of blogging about verbit and how relatively easy it is to earn money there legitimately. Plot twist alert.

So there I was, “editing” for verbit, earning more than enough to keep me afloat. I was making a clean $250 every two weeks. It’s not an obscene amount of money, but here in the Philippines, it’s more than what a typical call center agent makes, and it suits my purpose. It’s perfect for me, actually.

Then one day, around the second week of August, I checked my wordpress stats:

Now, I never intended for any of my blogs to garner that much traffic but as you can see, there was some commotion going on during that time. And 95% of these people read only one of my posts: My first verbit post. At that moment, I knew hard times would be ahead.

Sure enough, around the latter part of August, there were no more 30 minute files for 40 cents per audio minute. Only 5 to 10 minute work files that were only 30 cents per minute. And pretty soon, no more full queues of work files waiting for us every day as the arrival of files slowed down to a trickle. Work suddenly demanded a combination of focus and luck as each work file that dropped was snatched away in less than 1 to 2 seconds. I knew I had to look for alternatives, and I did NOT want to go back to Quicktate.

To summarize my search for alternatives, I tried rev.com, and I failed their exam for some inexplicable reason. I tried the GoTranscript test which I also failed. Strangely enough, I did the same test in behalf of my ex and SHE passed the confounded thing. No matter. I had to keep searching. I was running out of time.

Then I remembered I had a quick chat with a verbit support rep more than a month ago. Verbit had a live chat support system built right into their website and they were very responsive. WERE. Anyway, I remembered casually inquiring about what it would take to get promoted and become a Reviewer, which is the equivalent of Quality Analysts. They are, in a sense, the last line of defense against shoddy transcriptions and edits. I remembered the support representative saying you needed an average rating of 4 or above (highest rating for each work file is 5).

I was certain I could do that, but I did not want to pester them more about details. I didn’t know how long I had to wait, or did they tally the scores on a weekly or monthly basis, or if there was a formal application process I had to go through. I didn’t think there was any. But getting promoted as a Reviewer would solve my long-term concerns with verbit. Work would almost always be available for me.

So, I started working more on quality. I conformed to every microscopic preference most of the reviewers had. And I say “most” because, damn they are terribly calibrated there when it comes to transcription stylings. I wondered if these people HAD to find corrections, else they got scrutinized. It became a matter of opinion whether a word was a filler or not, where comma’s should go, where to end a sentence, et cetera. At one point, I got so pissed off I vented at their support chat box even though there wasn’t anyone there at that moment.

“your reviewers can’t seem to make up their mind on a lot of things. =( is it data set or dataset? whichever i use, I end up getting corrected. should “So, ” be considered a filler? whatever I do, I get corrected. maybe there needs to be more clarification with regards to style and conventions. quality checks are supposed to be objective and standardized. instead, it’s different for each editor, and more alarmingly, for each reviewer. just letting you guys know. =/”

I hated getting 3’s on any of my work. I was definitely still averaging more than a 4-rating whether you checked by day, week, or month. Still, I truly hated seeing any of my work rated as 3. I was jumping through all their hoops, I was slowing down hard-to-follow audio, I installed an audio booster on my computer so I could hear everything better, I learned dozens of terminologies from dozens of topics ranging from cricket to cooking.

And then, last night, it happened.

Well, what do you know. Sometimes, good, clean, hard work DOES pay off. It’s not an increase in pay, not by any stretch of the imagination. But what it does mean is that I will probably never run out of work. AND getting that validation and recognition of my efforts isn’t something to yawn about.

Who knows what’s next? =)