I have been fighting with Payoneer from quite a long time now. I think it is has reached the point when I should share my experience.
I started working on upwork as a freelance developer around 2011. About four years ago I was looking for options to receive payments from foriegn clients when I found out about Payoneer. I read that it was a good substitute for PayPal, which is not providing ‘proper’ services in Pakistan even today. (Read my article about PayPal here, I am also annoyed with them 😉 )
Anyway, Payoneer sent me their so called “Prepaid Debit Card” twice and I didn’t receive it. Their customer services people wrote to me that I should order the card via DHL service and I should pay around $60 dollars for that. In my opinion for people living in Pakistan thats a bit expensive so I wrote to them in retaliation. They just stopped responding to my emails 🙂 Awesome customer services 😛
In 2017, about three months ago, I received an email from Upwork that they had automatically sent about $50 (I hadn’t been active) to my Payoneer card. Surprised I was with both Upwork and Payoneer. With upwork because how could they change my auto transfer payment method without informing me. With Payoneer that they hadn’t blocked an account that had been inactive for more than three years straight!
Anyway, I assumed Payoneer Customer Services will not respond to me so I wrote to them via Facebook. To cut the story short I received the card in less than two months time. (I saw light at the end of the tunnel 😛 )
You might have thought that all is well that ends well. It doesn’t!
The card arrived and I got it activated. It took me about month to reach the time when I actually used it on an ATM of MCB. I would like you to stay focused here and keep in mind that $1 = about 100 PKR so the math is simple just multiply with a 100.
I had in mind that upwork sent about $50, so I took out Rs. 5000. The ATM responded with “Not enough money in your account.”
So I entered Rs. 4000. Again, “Not enough Cash”.
I checked the balance and it was PK 4300.
I took out Rs. 3000. Again, “Not enough Cash”.
Tried Rs 1000 and money came out lucky me 🙂 I checked the balance it was around PKR 2700. I took out another 1500 and now the balance is Rs 250 something. Did anybody get what happened here?
Out of $50 (PKR 5000), I received only PKR 2500 (50 {d79a6d3fc954d12776e94c2e20e5b96002b612c6f83590b39d443ad63a49773e}). The rest of 50 {d79a6d3fc954d12776e94c2e20e5b96002b612c6f83590b39d443ad63a49773e} was gone in deductions!
Shame! My hatred for Payoneer continues to grow and every time I see your ridiculous add on my facebook, I am disgusted! I mean its 2017, this level of customer dissatisfaction, can you afford that?
For those of you who are still looking for solutions especially from Pakistan, Upwork makes a direct payment to bank and deducts less than $5 per transaction (Yea they screwed up earlier but their customer services are cool people!). Similarly if you want to send invoices directly to clients try 2checkout.com. Amazing service!
Please feel free to comment below to share your experiences, good or bad 🙂