Calling Credit Card Hotlines from the Province on the Cheap!

This post serves as a guide for fellow promdis like me who use credit cards and need to occasionally call their hotlines for one matter or another (and not rack up huge mobile phone bills in the process).

To give you a brief background, I grew up in the city with a PLDT landline (telebabad was life back then) but then later moved to a sorta rural municipality with no telephones. Cellphones were starting to be a thing then, so most households opted for cellphones instead and never bothered to get old-school landline telephones. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Fast forward to today, and I have several credit cards which I use for #adulting and all that shizz. There are times when I need to call the credit card company, like when a card was not delivered or when I need to inquire or clarify something. And while calling from my mobile is feasible, it pains me to rack up a huge phone bill while going through the automated menu and waiting to talk to a human operator. 😭 This is especially annoying when the waiting time turns out to be much longer than the actual conversation itself. 😫

So anyway. On to the money-saving scheme. To be clear, this is not entirely a hack since it’s mostly common knowledge just compiled for easier reference. Just a little research and all that. What I use:

Globelines Landline ☎
(bundled with Globe At Home Plan 1299)

There are three (3) credit card companies that I call for FREE using this:

• Banco De Oro (BDO) – 1-800-8-631-8000
• Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) – (02) 976-8000
• Security Bank – (0917) 886-4429 (this number connects to their hotline)

I have called HSBC a lot regarding several failed card delivery attempts, and I’d like to think I have saved a lot of precious mobile phone airtime by using the landline for free. 👌🏽

Bottomline: You can call any Globe mobile or landline from any part of the country for FREE. Same goes for Globe toll-free numbers.

Sun Cellular Prepaid

So this one is not exactly free. You need to shell out a bit (₱200 to be exact) to register for or buy a Text Unlimited 200 card. Don’t worry, that’s already good for 30 days. So why that particular promo? Look at the inclusions:

Truthfully, I only really care about those 300 minutes worth of calls to PLDT landlines. 😁 That oughtta be more than enough to have several heart-to-heart talks with your suking credit card operator, and then some. Using this, I call up the following credit card companies:

• Citibank – (02) 995-9999
• EastWest Bank – (02) 888-1700
• Metrobank – (02) 8-700-700
• RCBC Bankard – (02) 888-1-888

A word of advice when using this Sun TU200: call the landline, NOT the toll-free number. Calling the landline numbers would simply use up minutes from your 300-minute airtime, whereas calling the toll-free number would consume your regular load. I know this from experience, so please learn from me. 😅

Aside from that, you can also call any PLDT landline from anywhere in the country using your TU200 airtime. Yes, you’re welcome. 😉

Other Bank Customer Service Numbers

Just to be as thorough as I could be, I also tried calling other banks using the Sun Cellular TU200. Other banks’ Customer Service numbers I have successfully reached using this are:

And there you go. If this post helps even just one fellow promdi save a little money in calling his/her bank, then I’m a happy camper. 😊