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BPI Classic and BDO Shop More Mastercard Are the Best Credit Cards for Employees. (Part 2)
August 16, 2008 · Filed Under BDO, Credit cards
WARNING for employees! Apply for a credit card only if you haven’t changed your old but nice Nokia phone, if you only have a few pairs of good shoes and just enough good clothes, and if your usual routine is home-to-work-then-back-to-home. These mean you have complete control of your spending.
BDO Shop More has also many features that most other cards don’t have:
- BDO charges 3.25 %, lower than the usual 3.5% rate charged by other Mastercard or Visa providers in the country.
- The total annual membership fee is P900, which is much lower than the P1,600 charged by others of the same card class. What is even nicer is that BDO doesn’t charge you the whole P900 in advance. It just adds P75 to your due every month. The others bill you P1,600 at the beginning of your annual period, with you paying interest for it from month to month if you don’t pay it in full at once.
- BDO also has products that help you avoid the very expensive Cash Advance during emergencies. These are EasyPAY Cash, which requires you to present official receipts of cash purchases and EasyPAY Cash Tuition Assist, which requires school receipts. In terms of cash release, BDO does a bit better than BPI because you can get your cash immediately over the counter after some minutes of paperwork. Interest rates vary from 0.88% to 1.6% monthly, depending on the amount and term.
- BDO has launched a Charge-on-Demand facility for Meralco bills. This is good for cardholders that don’t like to auto-charge bills. You just phone BDO with your bill on hand. The only hassle with this system is you have to fax the bill to BDO after the phone call.
- Just like the others, BDO also offers balance transfers, with rates ranging from 0.70% to 1.6%, depending on the amount and term. Unlike BPI Classic, BDO pays directly to the other card, to prevent you from diverting the money.
- In terms of where and how to pay dues, BDO gives the least hassle because it keeps longer hours and it seems to have a branch in every corner nowadays, in addition to its SM mall branches and customer service centers which are also open on weekends and holidays.
- Lastly, the BDO card comes with a free SM Advantage Card, which you can use to collect cash points at SM, Petron, Ace Hardware, Watson and other SM affiliates.
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4 Responses to “BPI Classic and BDO Shop More Mastercard Are the Best Credit Cards for Employees. (Part 2)”
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You have all these advantages but the problem with your card is the customer service. I was trying to send BDO credit cards through fax to inform them that I’ve already canceled my transaction with Philippine Prudential Life Insurance(PPL). I’ve been trying to fax my letter together with the statement of account from PPL for more than a week, from March 30 to April 7, 2009. The lines are always busy and when I asked your customer service if there are other ways that I can send the documents to their office, they would just reply that is the only way, to fax my documents to the busy fax numbers they gave me.
This clearly shows you have no concern to your customers.
Also, I asked a BDO branch (SM Marilao) to fax my documents to BDO Credit cards since your line is always busy (this was a suggestion of one of your customer service agent) but their fax machine is for repair. I asked if I can leave a copy of the document to them so that when their machine is already working, they can fax my documents to your office. Unfortunately, they did not accept my request.
Also, can I just mail my documents to the Head office? Your customer service agents are not suggesting other solutions to my problem.
The problem is at your end since I’ve already exerted a lot of effort in trying to fax my documents.
Hope you would improve on your customer service. Also, hope the fax number that your agents gave me will be accessible.
Yes, Melanie, it’s really very frustrating when you transact with a big very profitable bank (but BDO lost millions of dollars in their Lehman investment; anyway, I’ve read Mr. Sy’s wealthy friends helped him), and their customer relations officers could not help you. Months ago, I faxed something credit-card-related to BDO in an Internet cafe-fax service here in our neighborhood in Muntinlupa, and it was okay. The fax number I gave to the fax-machine owner was busy, but he said BDO automatically transferred it to a less-busy number, so my documents got through. I got these credit-card-related fax numbers from BDO’s site: 667 1568 and 727-3924. If you have time, you might like to send your feedback at their feedback page at http://www.bdo.com.ph/contactus/feedback.html
I applied for a BDO Shopmore Credit Card last June of 2008. However, it is only in March 2009 that my credit card was personally delivered to me (after almost year of frustrated calls to their customer service). One thing more, my billing statements do not arrive on time! I have to regularly call their hotline number just to get a copy of my billing statements via email! I am really considering of switching to other credit card providers because of these inconveniences of owning a BDO credit card.
Hi, Jhun, yes, I can understand your feelings. I think BDO cards have become so popular that BDO’s personnel can no longer handle the load. Even their hotline number is no longer a hotline. You have to hold the phone for hours before you can hear a human voice. They’ve also increased their rate from 3.25 to 3.5 percent. If you’re considering switching, I think East West is okay. Its rates are much lower. I have an AIG card, and I’m just waiting for its conversion to an EastWest card, as EastWest bought the AIG card portfolio recently.