Google turned 9 years old yesterday, and what better way to celebrate it than to roll out the Western Union Quick Cash option for Adsense publishers!
IMO, this is far more convenient and virtually worry-free compared to receiving it through mail. Knowing all the thefts going on in our corrupt local post office, I hope this sad chapter of our online lives will finally be over. For now, supported countries are the Philippines, China, Malaysia, Pakistan, Romania, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Colombia. Google will expand it to more countries but did not specify when.
For instructions on changing your form of payment to Western Union Quick Cash, head over to Abe’s post.
Update: As far as I’m know, there are no fees involved in receiving your earnings through Western Union. Although Yuga wrote a year ago a list of corresponding fees depending on the amount of money you’ll get. Angelo referenced it in his recent post too. Google’s support page does not mention anything about fees. They are usually very upfront about this, so it’s safe to say that for now, there are no fees involved.
Update 2.0: Commenter Marhgil Macuha leads me to a forum post that confirms that choosing Western Union Quick Cash is indeed free.
i think it was safer when BDO was still around so straight deposit to my account.
Hi Andrew – I’ve been receiving Google payments through WU for a number of months now, I was part of the beta test. Don’t worry, there are no fees to pay on this (at least I have never paid a fee on getting cash from Google through WU). The fees that Yuga wrote about are fees that the sender of the cash would normally pay. I would suspect that Google has negotiated a much lower fee schedule with WU though.
@Bob: Thanks. I am concerned about the fees because just like the mail option, Google makes us pay (for express delivery). Now if it costs $30 for Google to remit the money to me, why wouldn’t they charge me for it? But I guess they’ve found a way to make it cheaper. Good for us. 😀
This forum post which appears to be a reply from Google Adsense support about Western Union confirms that the payout via WU is free of charge.
@Marhgil: Wow, thanks for that! Updating post…
Great to know that google allow us to have another payment option and it is free. Reaching the target of $100 for a minimun payout is quite a task and imagine you have to pay $30 out of your $100 earning which is 30%. Whaaaahoooo.