Tales of Lost Adsense Cheques

Another Adsense cheque bites the dust, this time, that of Jepoy. Receiving international cheques in the Philippines isn’t safe, even if you course it thru registered mail. A lot of Adsense publishers learned that the painful way — may it be in dollars or peso currency, someone diligent enough and with the right connections can encash them quicker than you’ve realized you’ve lost it in the mail.

A lot of people have suggested solutions for s stricter mailing policy from Google but I think the problem is not with the search giant but with our Philippine Postal system. Whatever security measures are put in place will only be bypassed if it’s an inside job. There are only two ways I can think of that could solve this postal thievery:

DHL Express. They’re one of the most trusted courier in the world so you can be sure you’d get your package & money on time (actually faster). The only issue is the $24PHP 1,408INR 2,034EUR 23CNY 175 courier fee which is a bit expensive (but it’s money we’re talking about here). One way to save is to make your payments on-hold for several months until you’ve got enough funds to offset the delivery service.

Direct Fund Transfer. This is not yet supported by Google in the Philippines but I think this is the most convenient way really. Let’s just hope that comes along soon enough.

On another topic, I’ve also been informed by my bank that dollar cheque deposits are now being tracked by the Central Bank by getting the depositor’s TIN and asking for the source of the remittance. They’d categorize it as either professional fee, donations or dividends. Not sure what’s the real reason behind it but I guess since that terrorism act has been passed into law, that’s one way for the government to track money laundering activities funding terrorism groups. That’s just a theory though. :D