MANILA, Philippines?Elpi O. Cuna, vice president for corporate communication of the Manila Electric Company, wants ?to make it categorically clear that Meralco does not authorize nor deploy field representatives to randomly check on the consumption of individual households. Our responsibility is only up to the metering point and we do not allow our employees to go inside the customer?s house to check their appliances.?

Cuna was reacting to an item in this column about a person introducing herself as a Meralco employee but actually touting the service of another company to lower electricity consumption.

Cuna said they were well aware of people going around posing as their employees.

?The most prevalent of these schemes involve unscrupulous individuals ... asking Metro Manila residents about their billing statements and their households? electricity consumption. According to our previous investigations, their modus operandi is to check and verify the appliances? electricity consumption so they will be able to get inside the household.?

Cuna said consumption patterns were used only as a guide in case of billing complaints. But a legitimate Meralco employee did not have to go inside a client?s house and check individual appliances to establish the consumption pattern.

?Our responsibility is only up to the metering point,? he stressed.

Cuna advised Meralco customers to report the impostors to its call center, 16211.

Tipping required

A gratuity or tip, according to the dictionary, ?is a gift of money, over and above payment due for service ... something given without claim or demand.?

But, in many places, regardless of the kind of service you get, people expect to be tipped. And, if you look like you are not a generous tipper, they make you feel like attending to you is an ordeal.

A reader?s experience in some spas in Quezon City is worse. It seems the establishments have made tipping compulsory.

The reader said, after her massage, the masseuse would hand her a piece of paper. She said it was a ?tip form? that the customer was supposed to fill out with the name of the masseuse and the amount she was giving. The customer was then supposed to sign the form.

?I have nothing against tipping,? the reader said, ?but shouldn?t a tip be given wholeheartedly, not by force??

She added that, if you failed to tip the masseuse, you would not get attended to when you returned.

?It is just not right. Paano kung walang pang tip yong customer?? she said.

Feedback

Acting on the complaint of a reader about a tampered automated teller machine, Elvira E. Ditching-Lorico, head, financial consumer affairs group, said the Bank of Commerce immediately replaced the equipment with a new one with an added feature called extender.

?This is a device which will allow unreleased cash from a successful withdrawal to slip off,? she said.

The letter sender complained that some unscrupulous individuals attached a sealed container to the ATM that prevented the release of the cash he withdrew.

He said he was about to leave the machine thinking it malfunctioned when he noticed that there seemed to be something different about it.

After poking and probing, he was able to detach the container and found his money caught in it.

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