I need to get this out of my system. I am totally displeased with the way UOB conducted its operations. Recently, they changed all their debit cards and replaced it with a UOB NOW card, which is free only for the first year.

A bit of history. I applied in December 2006. Then, I knew that the points will expire within two years, and I knew I would have spent enough to redeem my points within the two years. Hence I applied for a TX account, which is free totally, and it came with the TX card.

Recently, in about April or May, they sent me a UOB NOW card, meant to replace the TX card. I was happy initially, because my TX card is super chui. The problem is that I have to spend like SGD $2000+ from second year onwards for the fees to be waived. As a student, my purchasing power is not high enough, so how could I accept this?

Hence I went down to UOB at Raffles Place and applied for the Campus Account that comes with the Campus card. What happened is totally unsatisfactory because the front line staff is clueless with the product they are offering. I got my account cancelled, and my Campus Account registered. After consulting with her superior than the staff realized that the Campus Card has ALSO been replaced with the UOB NOW card. I was really pissed off, because I had wasted my time there. But I asked if it would be free since it’s tied to a Campus Account, and she said yes. “Even for the second year onwards?” The reply was yes.

Then more problem came up. She wanted to tie the Campus Account to the NOW card I had initially, but I had not activated my NOW card. Hence she cannot tie the account to the card, and told me she will reapply for me a new NOW card and she cut up my NOW card. Ok fine, that was in May.

When end of June arrived (two bloody months), I emailed them about my UNI rewards points, and it is only today, two weeks after the email that they bothered to call me up. And now what have I realised?

Firstly, Campus Account or whatever account, you still have to pay the fees from the second year onwards. Thanks UOB, you could have told me that on the start, and I would just have to withdraw my money and move on to another bank.

Secondly, they will not process all reapplications when they have sent the initial one. Thanks UOB, you cut up my card and refused my reapplication! Furthermore, you called me in the mid June and asked me if I got my new card, of which I said no, and you told me you’ll process it. I even went down to UOB again in mid June to check on my status, and it is in process. Now, UOB, you tell me the application is NOT even processed. Thanks UOB, I certainly deserve better.

Lastly, I have insufficient points to redeem anything. Besides, if I want to redeem, I got to get the card because only via the card can I redeem anything. Why can’t you tie the points system to the internet banking facility you twit bank. The problem with you is that I could have had enough points, but I didn’t because I didn’t even have the full two years to spend enough. The problem is that they are going to expire ahead of schedule (not two years) because UOB decided it was smart of them to change it to SMART points. Yeah UOB, thanks huh.

Now I told the guy not to process my application anymore. One of these days I am going to cancel my account with UOB, take the money out, and go to DBS. After all, it makes more sense right? DBS has an NUS debit card that offers me four years of free card services. It allows me to pay for my domain name + stuff at least for the next four years.

Thanks UOB, with all the hoo haa about customer service, I have discovered what a wonderful company you are. Rest assured I would be very apprehensive about where I put my money next time when I graduate. Perhaps when I want to do any investments, UOB will be the last bank of my choice. So there. Thanks UOB for wasting my time since May. Two months plus. Thank you!

I can’t tell you how important it is to write polite emails. Even when you are filling a ‘Contact Us’ form on a website, e-mail etiquette applies because most probably the administrator is going to receive your information in his mailbox.

What constitutes a good email? What is a no go? Let me just briefly talk it through. I just received a rather “rude” email. It wasn’t entire rude, but the tone wasn’t friendly or polite.

In an email or a contact form, you can always start off by “Dear Sir/Mdm” or a simple “Hi!”. To make it less formal sounding, just use a “Hi” and I’m sure you have started off fine. Please do not launch into the objectives straight away, although it won’t be impolite if you omit the “Hi!”.

Next, the body of the text. Think about what you are saying, and put it in a polite tone. When I contact people from forms, I normally try my best to sound as polite as possible. In the email I got, the person questioned my website policy in NextTutor.

Then you all do this for what? Altruism?

Come on, whats the catch.

Seriously, this is in an “accusatory” tone. He or she could have phrased it differently and making me feel pleasant about answering his or her questions. Directly accusing me of being a “hypocrite” is wrong because I am not. I mean, one shouldn’t directly keep thinking that there are catches when somebody offers a service for free. For me, I would write it this way:

Hi,

I read from your website at NextTutor.com that you are offering the service for free. I was just wondering if there are any reasons behind, like I have to pay some money to unlock special features? I am also curious to know the reasons behind your decision to offer the service for free. I’m curious because most other websites will not do all these for free.

Thank you.

Yours,
XXXXXXX

I think this sounds much better. In fact, if I receive such an email, I would be more than happy to tell him or her why. Of course, no matter what I gave him/her a reply that I hope would be satisfactory and as polite as possible, but I’m sure people will understand when you feel a tinge of irritation when you reply to rude emails.

Well, in fact I’m really doing everything for free. One do not need to pay to use the facilities provided by NextTutor. In fact, there are not many services provided, just a simple database + filter capabilities. There is no hidden charge and I only cover my hosting fees and domain name fees through adsense, which till now, has just been enough to cover the fees.

The reason why NextTutor was started was more of an interest in learning PHP. From young I had an interest in websites, and I guess PHP opened a whole new dimension for me because I can create dynamic sites. Using this technology, everyone’s lives would be easier.

In a way, being cynical and using the word altruism makes me feel like some organ donor.

Seriously, which parent or tuition coordinator will pay me money just to put up an assignment? Tuition assignment forums are also free of charge! In fact, I provide the means for people to see your assignment, but I do not help anyone link tutors and students together. Hence, I guess if I asked for payment, my users will be 0. Simple as that. In this information age, why should we pay money for something we provide? Hence, I’m just using ads to cover my fees.

In the future, perhaps I will go into linking students and tutors, and there will be separate fees for that. No matter what, NextTutor’s database will remain free. If I cannot cover my hosting costs one day, I will close NextTutor down, simple as that.

So please people, write polite emails. It make’s everyone’s day better, especially someone who does not profit by providing a service. I’m sure we don’t go around questioning volunteers who are helping with disaster relief?

“Eh you volunteer for f***? Altruism ah? Confirm got catch one..”

How long will you wait for your ad earnings cheque to arrive? 1 week? 1 month? 2 months? Well, to me, the best would be to get the cheque within 1 month. After all, we have to give a little time for the staff to do the processing. But two months?

I understand that it seems to be the norm for most people who are cashing out their ad earnings, but it is pretty frustrating to know that they are grossly inefficient in their job. I’ve been talking about Nuffnang and how they don’t seem to listen or respond quickly to customer satisfaction. But now the problem is Advertlets take their own bloody sweet time to pay me my ad earnings.

That’s not the main problem though. I just wish that I can at least know when my cheque will arrive. Making me wait this long (since 4th of May), and the whole status is listed as ‘Unpaid’ doesn’t make my life easier. Sometimes you want to get a little money to spend, or satisfy a particular craving, but at this rate my craving will probably end before the money arrives. In Advertlets, there is supposedly different statuses like processing, and according to their website, processing takes 1 - 2 months, to determine click fraud and stuff. But my status is still at ‘Unpaid’. It’s not even processing! Should I be waiting for another 2 months? That’s totally inefficient! I really hope there’s a good explanation for all these, after all, i’m not the first person to think the duration is too long.

Many people have complained, and I guess when you see that your customer is not satisfied, you should do something to check. There is not much checking needed for me for click fraud. Hell, most of my earnings are through visits and not clicks anyway.

So what if their company is from Malaysia? I think it’s time for them to decide if Singapore bloggers are worth the trouble. If Singapore bloggers are worth the trouble, set up a Singapore office to process the cheques faster. Hell we can even go down and collect the cheque and save on postage fees.

Seriously, I think the only credible ad agency amongst the 3 is Blog2U. So far I have not received any ads through their auto-accept system, but I’ve seen people having ads run. However, I have gotten reviews chances from them, and their representative Shirley is really nice and polite. The best thing is that they process the money quick and by bank transfer. The money is fast, the service is good, I think the other two companies should learn from them. Perhaps they do not have such a big customer base or publisher base, but I will choose them over the other two anytime because what matters to me is myself. I guess as long as a company demonstrates that I am important to them, I will stick to their company. It makes perfect sense right?

So Advertlets, how long do you want me to wait before my status even proceeds to ‘processing’? Are they trying to wait till the exchange rates change? It makes no sense.

Taken from http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/comics/archive.pl (June 15th Comic)

Don’t you think that is rather true? Click on the image to see the whole comic. The image is too large to fit in the blog properly. I mean, you can be a great stuntman when you are alone with yourself, but people won’t recognize you for it because no one ever seen it. But if you are down on your luck, a certain unlucky event can give people the wrong impression of you. In this case, people will think you are clumsy.

Sometimes all it takes is for something bad to tarnish your reputation. A clean politician embroiled in a scandal that was created to cause a bad image of him will ruin his reputation and career forever. No matter what you have done before that, people will always remember the bad things that happened. Take for example Edison Chen. I don’t even listen to his songs or watch his movies, but he’s the idiot who took the sex photos. There you go. Bad names stick.

But the main point really is, nobody knows how we feel deep down. We may have the purest of intentions, but things may go wrong. This is always the case. You feel like doing good for something, but a certain misunderstanding causes you to seem like you’re doing bad. Or you may be stressed out and momentarily confused, and something you accidentally do, may cause people to have a bad impression of you forever.

But should it be the case? Should we judge people like that, based on one event? Or should we only have the right to judge a person only if we know him fairly well and understand his character? For all you know, that particular guy down the road didn’t mean to accidentally spill his drink on your favourite shirt. Before you condemn him to the lowest of levels, perhaps, we should be more forgiving of certain faults?

We are truest when we are alone, and we understand ourselves better. We know our intentions, but other’s don’t. All we can do is to hope people don’t judge you for one event but what you did for a whole lifetime. All we can do is to make sure we don’t judge people for one event but what they did for a lifetime. That, is perhaps the beginning of a better world.

Got this in an email from a friend, I got to say, these photos look very suggestive. Haha. I wonder who did all these. Enjoy!

Now give them some love, won’t you?