Solution for the PayPal/EON Card problem

Recently I opened an account on paypal.com for this online job I had. Then I found out about the easiest way for residents in the Philippines to verify their paypal, and that’s the UnionBank EON Card. Basically it’s a Visa Electron Debit Card. At first it seemed to be a grat deal since you only need to pay an annual fee of PhP 350.00 and you can apply online and get it a week later. So I acquired it and I did get just one week later. When I got it, they told me to wait for one week for the card to be activated, so one week later, I tried to register my EON card on my paypal account. So after filling the necessary information, a horrific message appeared saying that the bank denied my card. So I went to the UnionBank branch where I got my card but the best response they could give me is "that doesn’t make sense!" No Sh#t it doesn’t make sense!! Considering that unionbank’s website is heavilly promoting their cards are honored by paypal, they should be the first to know why my card was denied. And it doesn’t stop there, an employee of the bank suggested that I call up their Customer Suppor Line, so I did. I dialed the number on my card and what I got was a recording saying "all our officers are occupied at the moment. Please hold until an agent becomes available." So I did hold. A couple of minutes later, the line was cut off. Turns out it ate up all the load on my cellphone. Good grief!!!!

The Solution

Good thing my friend figured out what was wrong. He said that I might need to deposit some money on my EON Card Account for it to be verified. So the next day, I depostied PhP 200.00 on my card and I tried verifying it on paypal afterwards. Viola! It worked! Turns out paypal won’t accept cardholders who are broke! Why couldn’t anyone from the UnionBank Branch tell me this?

Anyway, the moral of the story is you should always know who’s the right person to ask… and it isn’t always the people in authority.