u/diverareyouokay

I flew into NAIA this morning and figured I’d pick up a few thousand pesos in pocket money to get to my apartment in Puerto Galera with. I used my Schwab card in the pictured machine and it locked up for 5 minutes after plugging in my PIN and requesting the money (stuck on the “your transaction is processing” screen, then went back to normal, without dispensing money or my card.

Airport staff was useless - ironically, by the time that I got somebody who walked over to the machine with me, another western was standing in front of it whose card was also eaten. Strangely enough, as we were both talking to the airport agent, the machine randomly spit out yet another person’s card (even more odd was it was also a Charles Schwab card - just not mine or his).

I’ve never heard of PBB before, but didn’t really think anything of it since it’s ATM in the airport. I guess I learned a lesson - stick to ATMs that have attached workers, like the PNB on the other side of the hall.

I contacted PBB and was essentially told “sorry, you’ll need to go to the makati branch and have them figure it out”. Which unfortunately wasn’t an option unless I was willing to change my travel plans over this.

I immediately froze the card and contacted Schwab – they are being pretty awesome, and expediting a replacement through DHL to Puerto Galera.

Any color it may have just been a fluke, but if given the choice, I would not recommend using PBB for cash withdrawals.

Usually I’m the one trying to help answer questions, but now I have one of my own. Let’s assume that I have 20 unconsolidated student loans in various amounts and a 200k total balance and switch to RAP in July. If my payment is less than the interest, the remaining interest is subsidized, and the balance should go down $50 per month.

Would this $50 reduction apply to *all* loans, or would it just be for the *aggregate* amount owed? Using the “20 loans” as an example, would each of those go down by $50 (so $1000 total) per month, or by $50 per month? So after ~16 years, my loans would “go away”? If so, how would this impact taxes - would it create a tax bomb, or would that 12k reduction each year be considered a “mini tax bomb” due when filing?

Apologies if this has been asked and answered, but I didn’t see it when doing a search, and if it applies to all loans, that seems important to know when deciding what plan to switch to once SAVE forbearance ends. It may be that nobody can answer this until the final rules are published, but hopefully that’s not the case.

Don’t use PBB (Philippine Business Bank) ATMs unless you want your card eaten.

When on RAP, if the payment isn’t equal to the interest, will all loans on the account go down by $50 each or just the total balance?