Just two days after I wrote about SMART BRO (see Goodbye, SMART BRO), I received a letter from the Social Media Services of SMART. Here’s the full text:

Thank you for notifying us of your concern.

We strive to provide you with the best possible service, and when you feel that it fails to meet your expectations, we appreciate your feedback.

We are sorry that you received service that prompted you to contact us with a complaint, and we regret any inconvenience or frustration that the experience has caused you.

Nevertheless, your concerns are already being attended to and we are already working to improve our internal process.

We shall be more than delighted to be of service of you again, in the future.

Sincerely,

Social Media Services
Smart Communiactions

The letter is obviously a template letter and this is probably an auto-generated reply. Nevertheless, I’m glad to see that SMART is monitoring the Internet to see what its customers are saying about their products and services. I just hope that this letter is not just for show and that SMART is truly doing something about the quality of its products and services.

It’s goodbye to SMART BRO.

After two years filled with irritation, incompetent customer service reps, and thousands of payment, we have ended our contract with SMART BRO and decided not to renew it anymore.

I’ve posted an entry about our dilemma with SMART BRO (see story) and it hasn’t changed since then. A few months ago, my husband got a SUN Broadband and we find that SUN offers more value for our money with its plan.

At P800 monthly, the plan provides us unlimited access to the Internet. Sure, there are days that its connection is down but at  least, I don’t fear that when I receive the billing statement, I would be charged with thousands in connection I have never used.

And because of SUN, we have stopped using our SMART BRO in the last three months. We just waited for the contract to expire so we can finally have it disconnected.

Here’s a side note to this. I posted my SMART Bro dilemma in one of the Yahoogroups I belong to. One of the members, a SMART employee, was kind enough to ask permission if she can forward my concerns to their Interactive Social Media Services Group.

A few days after, I received an email from Ashley John Villaroman. In a nutshell, he wanted to find a resolution to our dilemma and, in the process, convince us not to end the contract.

But I was hell-bent on ending the contract. My husband and I feel that we didn’t get our money’s worth with the plan. I thanked Ashley John for his email and told him that we’re not changing our minds. But because I want SMART BRO’s service to improve, I emailed him all my concerns.

We have four major issues with SMART BRO: incompetent CSRs, SMART Connect being not updated, absurd charging and intermittent connection, and its brand manager Ava Espanola, who simply doesn’t care.

The funny thing is that after I sent my email, I never heard from him again. Hahaha! He probably didn’t expect a mouthful from me. But I guess I’ve made my case why SMART BRO is not worth renewing.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate SMART. I have been a loyal SMART Gold postpaid user for the last eight years. And because of SMART, I have never bought a cell phone in the last eight years. I just keep renewing my SMART Gold contract every two years and I receive a new cell phone every time.

But SMART Bro is a different matter altogether. So, goodbye to SMART BRO and good riddance!

This is a very timely Christmas TVC from Unilab. The TVC talks about how life for all Filipinos would still move forward despite the tragedies that we experienced this year.

Umulan man ng pagsubok,
mananatili pa ring matibay ang samahan.
Umalon man ng hamon,
mangingibabaw pa rin ang lakas ng katawan.
Basta lahat tayo’y sama-sama
at nagkakaisa,
‘Di matitinag ang Pilipino.
Tuloy pa din ang Pasko

Just a little side topic. This is more of a reminder for myself but please feel free to be inspired by this Bible quote.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13

A few weeks have passed ever since tropical storm Ondoy and typhoon Pepeng hit the country, causing massive damage to many Filipinos. Until now, many are still trying to recover from the magnitude of the damage.

Allow me to provide some perspective. Aside from the environmental lessons, there are financial lessons, as well.

I know a very devastated husband (not mine) who lost his entire FHM Philippines collection. He diligently collected every issue from day 1 and it was all swept away by the flood.

Another husband’s comic collection was also badly damaged. His wife narrated that her husband started his comic collection ever since he was young. When the flood reached their home, they weren’t able to save anything. All was left was the loose pages from the collection.

Other stories I heard include the rock-bottom prices of houses in subdivisions that were badly hit by Ondoy like Provident Village. It seems that in their desperate attempt to just get rid of their houses and to start moving forward, many homeowners are dropping the prices so low. One is even offering her two-storey house for just P1 million.

What is the take-away from all these?

I believe that calamities like these are a wake-up call from God to focus on the more important things like your loved-ones and your own lives. Maybe we have spent way too much time and money in shallow things like collections, a grand home, etc. when we could have pursued more important things. Sure, we all want to live a comfortable life but we also have to realize that these material things should be balanced with spending more time with our family and loved-ones.

I feel so sorry for those collections and houses damaged by the storms. I have my own Archie comics and snowglobe collections and I would probably be just as devastated. But the storms also serve as a wake-up call to me to focus on the more important things in life.

Typhoon Ondoy brought continuous heavy rains in Luzon since Friday afternoon (Sept. 25) that by Saturday morning, the flood has started to rise and many were forced to flee.

Here in Fairview, Quezon City, about 50% of the area was affected with floods. North Fairview, Sitio Ruby (Sapamanai), and West Fairview saw some parts with water rising as high as a house.

Our own area in East Fairview was also affected. We live in a condo compound and by Saturday lunchtime, we saw the waters in a nearby creek spill.  Here’s the video I took yesterday when the water outside the compound was still knee-deep.

In just a couple of hours, we saw the water come inside the condo compound. It reached the ground  floor and residents there had to transfer to the higher floors.

And this is the video taken from our window. The cars in our street were submerged.

My own parents were stranded  in Bulacan after they went to Nueva Ecija yesterday morning to attend a wedding. They left Nueva Ecija by noon because they received info that the nearby dams would release water.

It took them 12 hours to get home because they got stranded in Bocaue, Bulacan. They had to get off the vehicle because the tollway patrol already told passengers to get out.  They had to take shelter in the headquarter of the Manila Tollways.

A few days ago, I received an email from an ad agency, inviting me to attend a bloggers’ event. It would have been an ordinary email if the event was about personal finance. But no, it was about another health and wellness event.

Admittedly, from time to time, I talk about health and wellness here in my blog. And when I do, I always start the title with “Side Topic.” This is just to remind myself and the readers that this is just a side note and my main focus remains on personal finance.

But the email invitation for a health and wellness event gives me the impression that I’m also making little noise in that field. The few times that I blogged about health and wellness products may have been enough to earn me invitations to such event.

And I dare ask myself if this is how the site would evolve. That aside from personal finance, will the blog be giving more focus to health and wellness? Or is this just a passing phase?

As a colleague told me over lunch, “Health and wellness ang ibang topics mo pero hindi naman tugma sa blog site mo!”

We’ll see how this goes… And yes, I confirmed my attendance to the event.

We join the Filipino nation in honoring former Philippine President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino.

Corazon Cojuangco Aquino is not only an icon of democracy but a great role model for all Filipino women. She is a testament of the greatness any Filipino woman can achieve, the proof that a Filipino woman can make a great name for herself. 

Mrs. Aquino will always be remembered not only for what she did to the Filipino nation but also for being a shining example to all Filipino women.

I read in today’s Philippine Star that PhilHealth members can now pay their premiums via text.

According to the photo, individual-paying members of PhilHealth will soon enjoy the convenience of paying their monthly premium contributions via text messaging. This new facility is a joint project of PhilHealth and E-Soluzione, Inc.

We hope to get more information about this. We’ll keep you posted

Although eBay is still the best auction site in the Philippines, eBay is still in its infancy stage here and more safeguards must be implemented to protect its members. Every time I visit eBay’s discussion board, I’m disheartened to find threads, where eBay members ask for help or ranting about being scammed.

A few months back, I posted an entry about the 13 red flags of a fraudulent eBay transaction. Courtesy of eBay members jenny_lake and silverstrad, they listed down possible red flags that eBay members should know.

Now, there’s a new thread in eBay’s discussion board, courtesy of vigilant eBay members and spearheaded by hananim012. You will find a discussion of auction postings that are potentially fraudulent.

I encourage everyone to regularly visit the Scam Patrol thread to ensure that you are entering into a legitimate transaction. And if you see fraudulent listings in eBay, please do your part and share it with the rest of the eBay Ph community. Every voice counts.