Anyway, I made my withdrawal through Western Union last week. As mentioned earlier in my blog, I proceeded to CIMB Branch in KL Sentral. The queue was rather long but I guess it’s worth the wait. Before you queue up, make sure you’ve filled the form located at the form section. The form has a yellow colour heading.

I knew which form to take as this is my 3rd time withdrawing money via Western Union. You might notice that in the Receiver column there isn’t enough space to fill in a typical Malaysian address which is so freaking long. So what I did was, I only put my house number and the street name in the form. As long it matched your details in your Identification Card.

In the Sender column, I filled in

First name  : Google Inc.

Address : 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway

              Mountain View CA 94043

              USA

Telephone no: (650) 253–4000

Note that CA stands for California and 94043 is the Zip-code/ Poscode.  I printed out my Statement of Earnings as my reference. Make sure you fill in the exact amount that you’re receiving from Adsense. As for the “City, state/province, country money sent from” part, just fill in  CA, USA. Then fill in the 10–digit MTCN number you got from the Google Adsense payment detail page. And you’re done with the form.

Just queue up and wait for you turn. During my queue, I saw a lady transacting her Western Union withdrawal as well. The amount she was withdrawal was quite shocking. As I looked at the screen of the money counter, it stated 300. OMG!! 300 RM50 notes per form. She was holding 3 piece of form by the way. =.=”

Anyway, you’ll be required to produce your Identification Card for verification. At this moment, I had to be patient as the process will take a few minutes for the verification process before they can hand you the money. After the verification is done, the lady at the counter asked me what purpose were those money for. I told her it’s my online revenue income from Google Adsense. She knew about Google but she had no idea bout Adsense. She thought that I work for Google. Ha ha… I then told her it’s more like a advertisement commission. She just nod her head and said “I see” then she continued processing my withdrawal.

A Debit Note will be issued to you. There’s no transaction fees or charges. The rate I got for my conversion was USD1 = MYR 3.31 . Still considered okay. I hope the rate will stay at that level or higher. Else, my earning will much more lesser if the rate dropped.

All I can say is, withdrawal through Western Union is faster than waiting for a foreign cheque to clear. Foreign cheque takes 1 week or more to clear but Western Union is hassle free and so fast that you can immideatly cash out the next day

The payment is available for pick-up the day after the payment date which is stated in the payment detail. I find it weird because the Payment Date is posted as 25th Oct 2007. Usually when a money transfer is sent by Western Union, you should be able to receive the money on the same day itself. I’ve only received the payment details 2 hours ago and it’s already 1st Nov. If you did not pickup your funds within 35 days from the Payment Date,  the amount will be credited back to your AdSense account.

I was worried that Western Union will charge a certain fee to get my funds. After checking out Ades’s Blog, I felt relieved as his blog mentioned that there will not be any charges imposed on the funds. I guess I’ll be going to KL Sentral later at noon to try to pick-up my funds.

I’ll post the updates after I get my hands on the cash =P

To sign up for Western Union Quick Cash service, you can click on the Sign Up link if the news bar below is shown at your Google Adsense dashboard.

OR

you can complete the following steps:

   1. Sign in to your account at www.google.com/adsense.
   2. Visit the My Account tab.
   3. Click the ‘edit’ link adjacent to the ‘Payment Details’ header.
   4. Select the Western Union Quick Cash radio button.
   5. Click ‘Continue’.
   6. Click ‘Save Changes’ to save your payment type.

Please make sure that the name on your account exactly matches that on the government issued ID card that you will bring to pick up your Western Union Quick Cash payments. If you need to update your payee name in your account, please inform Google Adsense team and will help you to do so.

Also, please note that Google Adsense is unable to guarantee payment for the next payment cycle in this form if your selection was made after the 15th of the month. For example, to ensure payment by Western Union Quick Cash for your March earnings, please complete the steps above before April 15th.

What is Western Union Quick Cash?

Western Union Quick Cash is a payment method that allows you to receive your AdSense payments in cash using the worldwide Western Union money transfer service. Payments will be available for pick up at the local Western Union Agent the day after they are sent according to our normal payment schedule. I would personally recommend CIMB (previously BCB) for the purpose. But I’m not sure if they still process Western Union transfers at the moment.

By using this payment method you don’t have to wait for the cheque to arrive in the mail. By choosing to receive payments by Western Union, you can also cut down on bank charges and long clearing time when deposit cheques.

Western Union Quick Cash payment will be made in US dollars. But you will have the option to receive the payment in the local currency at most Western Union Agent locations. Conversion rates will be calculated according to the rate used by the Western Union Agent on the day you pick up your payment.

To check out Western Union agents in your area, visit http://www.payment-solutions.com/agent.asp

I’m not sure if this works. Just trying it out. Those who have Adsense account should try this as an extra channel of Adsense income. =)