Aryty targets Filipinos abroad to Ask 4 Load

Found this one from a banner ad over at Friendster. At first I thought it was one of those Friendster services being silently rolled out without much funfare but it turns out to be a 3rd-party service.

Aryty (sounds like All Righty!) specifically targets OFWs in the US and Canada to send call and text loads to their relatives in the Philippines. Payment is done via credit card though there’s no details about the minimum charges and additional fees — something that could easily turn off people from using the service.

Anyone in the Philippines can sign up and request for load from their relatives in the US/Canada via email alogn with details of the mobile number. Likewise, they can do a request via SMS which supports Globe, Smart and Sun Cellular subscribers.

When you ask 4 load from Aryty.com via email, libre! Pero, yung requests to a cell phone in the U.S. or Canada may incur local text message charges from local carriers, as standard messaging rates apply.

Making a request from your mobile phones incurs standard charges from local Philippine carries as follows:
Smart, P2.5txn
Globe Telecom, P2.5txn
Sun Cellular, P2txn

Will this work? Depends on the pricing and additional charges.

Will the service allow the same loading scheme with denominations of Php30 to Php150? If they do, a Php30 ($0.60) load request might be more expensive if you compute credit card charges and fees.

Let’s say we follow Paypal’s stardard pricing of $0.30 + 2.9% per transaction. With a Php30 ($0.60) Ask 4 Load, you end up with $0.92 total charge; with a Php150 ($3.00) load you are charged ~$3.40. That gives you somewhere between 13% to 53% additional charges. These are rough computations but we can fairly say it’s gonna be expensive.

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