Operational glitch?

I am one of the millions of customers of this behemoth of a business called and more popularly known as Palawan. From being a pawnshop, Palawan has expanded to many other operations but, in my observation, the biggest number of its clientele avail the service of fund transfer. It is rather easy and fast for people distant from each other to send to and receive money using Palawan’s facilities. To be sure though, there are other vigorous firms offering similar services like M Lhuillier, Agencia Cebuana and RD Pawnshop. They also, observably, have branched out from their original pawnshop businesses and are doing extremely well.

I write this article today for Palawan to look into a minor operational glitch which affected me somehow, negatively. There is a big chance nobody else met a kind of similar incident I went thru. But, in case someone suffered (pardon the word) this glitch, this write-up should make Palawan streamline further its operation. In two separate occasions, I received thru my cellphone a text message from Palawan each informing me that i could claim (presumably, some funds) from any of its outlets. So, even if I were in Leyte or Bohol, for instance, I could just go to any of its branches and claim the transmittal by presenting appropriate identification.

To claim any supposed monetary transmission, the claimant has to fill up a form. It is a yellow paper for those receiving funds and light blue sheet for those sending money. Since I am a regular customer, I have become familiar with its process. The yellow paper requires the receiver to write, among other data, the name of the “sender,” the sender’s cellular phone number and the amount sent. At first glance, this is a reasonable requirement. Both sender and receiver of the fund transfer must be known to each other. It can therefore be safely presumed that they have exchanged text messages or called each other out of which the monetary transmission notification followed. The intended receiver knows the amount he expects.

I availed of Palawan’s money transfer services several previous times either as sender or receiver of funds. In two recent separate occasions though, the first took place in early June and the second happened in the last week of that month, I received notifications from Palawan to claim some money. Unfortunately in those occasions, I did not know my “senders.” Both my “senders” failed to alert me that they were sending some funds. I could not also recall of having talked to anyone recently for him or her to send me money. In other words, there was no way I could fill up the yellow claim form of Palawan in complete details and consequently I failed to receive what was sent to me. Policy, according to the employees of the company, is policy. They could not bend such policy even if the branch office I went to is a tenant occupying a space in my lady Carmen’s building.

There are many ways to skin a cat. I resorted to one such way in vain. I asked Palawan people how much was sent. Just that information. Perhaps, if I could just get the amounts involved, I might have ideas on who sent the transmissions and could fill up the claim form. But, policy is policy.

There is only one other Palawan customer I know who could not claim a monetary transmission because her sender did not advise her of such fund transfer. So, our number is probably, insignificant. Only few of us are unable to claim because of company policy. Even then, Palawan should draft a policy to help people in my situation without affecting its security protocol.