Update

Two days after I posted Unmasked, a blog entry / rant about not receiving my prize 5 months since the winners of a local photography contest were announced, I received an email from EPSON REP (ER) that my prize from NIKON is already ready for pick-up. I am not sure if any of those two firms read my blog that prompted them to do action or just purely coincidental.

April 14. Part of the email says,

I received a text message from Nikon yesterday stating that the check is ready for pick-up. Thus, he said that the winner should be the one to claim it. I informed him that you are not in the Phils.

Now, NIKON wanted me to claim the money personally. I replied citing that I already forwarded my bank information late last year to them (EPSON) since NIKON plans to deposit the money.

April 15. Got two emails from ER.

I just found out they will surrender the check to us here in Epson. Let me get back to you regarding this.
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I'm waiting for feedback from Nikon. They initially want someone to pick-up the check. We'll see if we can just be the one to do the bank transfer. FYI.

Everything was still unclear. I didn’t reply this time.

April 20. I received an email from another EPSON Rep (AER) stating that they already brought up the issue again with NIKON. I thought, it is not yet settled.

I was informed regarding the prize from Masskara Photo Contest.My apology on this matter.

The prize comes from Nikon(Columbia Digital) and not from Epson. I have already brought up the concern to them and in order for this to be settled immediately. We have asked NIKON to deposit your price today. Again my apology.

I replied, asking them to inform me if they have deposited the money already.

April 22. I received another email from AER

My apology for this incident sir.I will arrange it personally sir for this to be resolved immediately. I will accompany them to deposit your prize. I personally thank you for the patience you have given to the situation. I assure you that these things will not happen again.

I told AER that my brother informed me that an additional 16K were entered to my account. I asked AER to confirm if this money came from NIKON and to inform me if the prize money was deducted by some tax or something, and by how much.

April 23. AER told me again that the prize came from NIKON and not from EPSON. In the email, AER included NIKON REP (NR) for them to answer my query.

Dear NR,

Kindly ask your staff to email (me) re the details on how did you compute the deduction of taxes.

AER

No reply. Nothing. Last April 27, 2010, I followed-up again and told AER that maybe the tax deduction was 20% (4000 pesos) that is why I only got 16000 pesos. But no reply from both parties. Until now. Or perhaps they are still calculating it.

Anyway, I am still thankful to have received the prize money I fairly won five months ago. The hassles brought by this contest in claiming the prize money won’t be forgotten easily.

Of course, I would like to thank everyone for the support and for sharing my blog post to their personal sites / blog sites. I still believe that this not-so-immediate action done by the sponsor was due to the fact that they were able to read my previous blog as well as your comments.

totomai
05/01/10