Despite SMART Money’s numerous ad campaigns since its launch, the real step-by-step tutorials about how to do things with SMART Money seem to have been elusive. Furthermore, the communications seem to be fixated on SMART Money as a Mastercard-powered cash card – even while a large measure of its flexibility lies in its uses as a pure mobile-to-mobile payment platform.

Here’s one new approach that attempts to bring the message across via an easy-to-understand animated tutorial. SMART Money account holders can transmit load to other Smart subscribers’ prepaid accounts, whether these be other mobile accounts, or even SMART Bro prepaid modems. The amounts range from 50 pesos to 1,000 pesos, and unlike the traditional “pasaload” these amount don’t expire within the day.

I think this approach is the right way to go – it looks like this finally bridges the communications gap. Here’s hoping we get to see more video tutorials coming down the bend, spread via YouTube, blogs, and other forms of social media!

Link: The SMART Money FAQ.

My country is considered as the Text Capital of the world. The disparity of wealth distribution according to surveys is wide that only 1/3 of its people is enjoying affluence. Out of the remaining 2/3, perhaps only a few can afford to place a call through cell phones. The rates of calls are high thus the remainder is texters including me. But what a blight it is, to use e-loads. The experiences of my family and friends who use the product of this particular telecommunication company are so frustrating and annoying.

At first I was baffled why my e-loads were gone the following morning or 12 -18 hours after my cell phone was e-loaded. I sent messages to the company claiming that they took back my e-loads and to please restore it. I was flabbergasted with the replies I received “you are currently subscribed to the following services TOPMMS TRUETOP, TOP TRUEPOP.” These are pop tunes of the week which I found noisy and not to my taste.

The first time it happened I let it pass but after several incidents, I demanded a refund to the loads they took back. I was very much disappointed when they gave me the same answers, hence discussions ensued. I persisted that I did not subscribe anything from them; music of this kind is not my type. I listened only to music that is relevant to me. But even so my protestations fell on deaf ears. They insisted that I was already subscribed; I was adamant that I did not.

To put things in its proper perspective; I sent a message to the top management, to no avail. And to properly document the incident, I filed their messages and decided to unsubscribe from this company. Having been lured by the sweet advertisements flashed on tv screens, I was their good client since 2005. The ads are dazzling with promises as all advertisements do.

In this case, the promises to cater to the needs of the middle income below are just empty talk. Frankly, it’s not only me who is short-change but all consumers who are using e-loads.

Frustrations anyone?

It has been a known fact among our countrymen that the most consumable product in our country is not food nor is it any household items but cell phone credits. We are the texting capital of the world, Im not so sure if we should be proud of that but it is a fact that we can not just disregard.

I still remember when I started this race to 1 million. Walking in the streets of Makati asking for 1 peso was the turning point in all of this. I thought what if I could ask 1million people 1 peso each, I would still be a millionaire. The telecommunications network (globe sun smart) did that. Asked 1 peso from every filipino and it made them rich.  All Im asking is just a piece of the pie that globe, sun, and smart have.

The SMS market is a multi-billion peso industry with 40 Million cellphone users. There are 240 Million texts per day and 98% of cellphone users are pre-paid subscribers. What if we can get a small piece their pie? what if we can also earn from ready users and potential users? We can because there are services that offer this to us. SMART and Globe offered their eload business to the sari-sari stores but you need seperate phones to provide both because you cant just cater subscribers of 1 telecommunications company that’s like turning away a customer who is already intent in buying a product (credits).

There are other services that offer eload businesses to the ordinary folk like us. Wi-Max is a company that provides the opportunity for us to earn the way big telecommunications company earns their money. I know there are a lot of other companies that offer the same services as Wi-Max but this is the company I chose because after talking to Wilson Ng, Vice Chairman of the company, I was convinced that they are a legitimate company and they are offering this service to us. And they had a lot of other things to offer aside from eload. Which I will elaborate more in the future (meaning I still need to study it hahaha)

After seeing their presentation and a long discussion with Mr.Wilson Ng, I immediately bought a 2,200 package for the business. This is the reason I deducted 2,200 pesos from my progress report. It is a small investment for me since I’ve made the money from nothing.

For those who might be interested in the E-load business I will let you know how to do it in my next post called “The Ken-Max project” Earning 1 million pesos through eload.