You can’t be too noisy. The owner of the resort is here. You can’t sing videoke if you don’t have a good voice. The owner doesn’t like it.

Okay…

The place wasn’t ready at all. There were no lights near the cottage area and the pool seemed unclean. The jacuzzi doesn’t even have water in it. The maintenance was nowhere to be found and they were supposed to provide the extension cords for the lights. In addition, that lady who welcomed us, told my friend this statement:

Doktora ako, di ako alila dito. (I am a doctor, I’m not the help here.)

Well, didn’t you, Mrs. Doctor, told us that the owner does not like noisy resort-goers? Eh…but, wait, YOU are THE owner! Overlook Resort Hotel provided us with nothing but poor customer service. I was asking one of the women help in the resort if we could grill our barbecue in the “barbecue area” near the pool, but she said, “It’s not allowed.” I asked why it’s not allowed, and she simply replied with a sneer on her face, “Because it’s not allowed.” What the…?

For almost two hours, we waited for them to setup the place. Days before our arrival, they already knew we were coming, but when we got there, they were not prepared at all. The owner and the help were not accommodating in the slightest bit! Mrs. Doctor was a snob and unfriendly. Some of the help were unfriendly, too. We decided to leave the place and transfer to the resort in front of them. The maintenance guy told us that we had to tell Mrs. Doctor that we were vacating the place, so I told him to call her, but he said, no one can ask her to come to us, WE have to come to her. Why? We are the customers, right?

Overlook Resort Hotel in Antipolo, your service sucks!

We were very much satisfied with the other resort, but that’s for another blog entry.

• Convenience: The reason why buyers buy online is the convenience it gives. Buyers can nit pick on your items, browse your stuff and inquire about it, until they’re convinced they want it. How do you promote convenience, anyway?
  • Organize: Make sure your album covers and album titles tell us what the album is about. Most of the time, buyers skip an album because they don’t like the album cover or they have no idea what is inside the album. Example: a picture of a sign that says, “SALE!” Okay, that is catchy, but, if I see, “BAGS on SALE!” Much better.
  • HOW MUCH? Put a price tag. It is sometimes a hassle to check an item without the price, message the seller and wait for days before he/she answers the message. Isn’t it a hassle to answer so many queries about the same thing? How much is this? Why does the price have to be a secret?
  • Payment Methods: While G-Cash and Bank Deposits are quite popular, sellers must have a PAYPAL option. Why? It is the most convenient and a secure payment method online. It is hassle free for the buyer and the seller, where buying from you is only clicks away!
  • Shipping: Always indicate when you ship out your items. Once an item has been shipped out, send a text message, instant message, and private message to the buyer with the tracking number and the estimated date of item arrival. Do not overprice your shipping fee.
• Courtesy: Yes, there are bogus buyers, but there are bogus sellers, too. But I won’t talk about the bogus sellers. Don’t scare someone away because they can’t pay you within 3 days, or can’t return your messages ASAP. How do we define a bogus buyer?
  • A bogus buyer, in my opinion, is someone who never paid an item that was already sent. Just because a buyer didn’t push through with the order, doesn’t mean she’s a bogus buyer. No need to proclaim to the world that someone’s bogus because she didn’t go through with the order. People can change their minds. That’s a fact.
  • Once a successful transaction has been made, both buyer and seller should give each other some kind of feedback, via guestbook, reviews (recommended), or blog about the seller/buyer (if possible).
  • Constant communication while an item is in the process of being shipped is a must. You don’t want to leave your buyer guessing when her item is coming, do you?
• Be Honest: Honesty will help you gain your customer’s trust. When a buyer inquires on your items, do not say anything inaccurate about the product or item. The fact that they are interested, means they may have done a little research about it. So be accurate!

I posted this at my Pinoy Online Sellers group.

What makes the offer really suspicious is that they call via the telephone and tell you that you are part of a “Good Creditors List” and that makes you eligible to avail of such services. The thing is, they already have your credit card number at hand before they called. In order for my father to avail of those cards, he is to provide them the CSC (Card Security Code) that is found at the back of a credit card. I told my dad to call his bank right away and hold the card for any transactions. The credit card company saw a floating 3,000Php on his account. It’s a great thing that the transaction was cancelled and the bank will be sending him a new credit card.

I was really annoyed with my father that he, yet again, got duped by someone offering too-good-to-be-true products or services. My father gave my mother the contact information that Jasmin Cruz gave him. She has been calling the telephone number 750-6383 since last night, but the phone just rings, no one picks up the phone even during office hours. How suspicious is that?!

Lecturing my dad sometimes is like talking to a 5-year-old kid. After the lecture, the kid would still do the same thing that brought him into trouble. I just hope that he learned his lesson. I mean, what if his credit card is used in other transactions?

We should always be careful with accepting the things that are offered to us. At this day and age, a lot of people exist to scam guillible people. A lot of us have a hard time earning to survive living in this 3rd world country, and so do those scammers, so they take what they can get and more.

1. Yay me! I always do that to him. ↩
2. Fifth Well International Marketing Corporation ↩

How do you score an invite? According to ümobile:

If one of your friends is already a ümobile member then by all means use every sweet talk method in the book to get yourself invited.

Sounds easy right? But what if…

…your friend still hasn´t forgiven you for the time you stuck him with the bar tab, then drop by one of our ümobile events and if you match our criteria, you can snag an invite code from one of our code givers.

A code giver is someone who gives out the invite code. Remember, invite codes are FREE, so if anyone sold them to you, you’ve been duped!

I have been using their service for 2 days now and I must say, their signal is really great. The only downside I see so far is that I am having the hardest time sending messages to Globe and Sun subscribers. I can call them anonymously though. It’s as if my ümobile number is super top secret.

I am enjoying their fring™ service. What the what is fring, anyway?

fring™ is a mobile Internet service & community that enables you to access & interact with your social networks on-the-go, make free calls and live chat with all your fring™, Skype©, MSN© Messenger, Google Talk™, ICQ, SIP, Twitter, Yahoo!™ and AIM© friends using your handset’s Internet connection rather than costly cellular airtime minutes.

At first, I could not logon or even get connected to fring, so I sent an email to their customer service. After a while, I got a call from them asking if I am still having problems with my fring connection. The customer service rep said that she will forward my concerns to their products and services team, so I just said OK. After 30 minutes, I get an email from one of their reps, Angelo, asking me more details about the issue. I then received a call from him in less than 30 minutes. Long story short, my issue was resolved. All I had to do was set my default connections to ümobile settings.

I was amazed by their customer service. They made it seem like all your concerns are important that they had to call you and help you with your ümobile issues. The reason why they can call you is because your information is store in their system, so if concerns arise, they can contact you immediately. I just hope they will be able to keep this kind of customer service. It is rare, rare anywhere else.

One of the perks that I love most is that I get Php100 credits every month for the first 6 months! That’s super generous of them. I can also purchase credits online and pay via PayPal, or share pre-paid credits to my family and friends. Coolness.

Current smokers who quit the habit may find that they can make significant cost savings, Fairinvestment.co.uk has suggested. Full story here.

The story actually made sense. It is true that smokers spend their money to buy cigarettes and a chain smoker could spend more in a year. I know that the costs for a pack of cigarettes have increased throughout the years. I remember it being 0.50 centavos a stick and now, I believe, local cigarettes cost about 2.00Php a stick.

If you think about it, if smokers give up smoking, they can actually save the money to help them pay their debts. Mortgage is one of the things that is hard to pay off. Let’s say you spend $30 for a pack of cigarettes a day, in a month you spend around $900 to $1000, if you buy extra packs, so in a year you spend about $12,000 for a vice that can kill you.

What if you give up smoking and save all that money?

I believe it can make a difference. I personally dislike smokers, well, not that I don’t associate with smokers, I just don’t like being around them when they smoke. It’s a great think that Ryan gave up smoking more than a year ago and I am so proud of him. I wish my father would be able to do the same.

Make a choice. To smoke, or not to smoke… and save tons of money! You also save trees!

The people who have developed this disease suffer from pain on the chest wall. Some of the signs and symptoms of this illness are pleural effusion, shortness of breath, anemia, cough, and blood in the sputum¹. In most cases, a patient develop tumor masses.

There are several ways to treat this disease. It can be physically removed by surgery. A patient can also drink medicines prescribed, or through Chemotherapy. Radiation therapy can also be done to the patient, which uses high dose of x-rays to kill the cancer cells. Another way is by destroying the cancer cells through the energy from light, or Photodynamic Therapy. The immune system of the body can also help fight the cancer through Immunotherapy. There have been clinical trials that targets the tumor, and holds a good promise of improvement for the patient’s health, called Gene Therapy.

Whatever type of treatment the patient chooses can help. Cancer is the type of disease that is hard to cure. There is always a tendency for it to come back. A person must always aim for a good health and do certain precautions to prevent getting ill.

1. matter that is expectorated from the respiratory tract, such as mucus or phlegm ↩