After a panicked email to my travel agent, I was able to get an extra working day to pay for our tickets for our summer trip, so now they are all paid for, though it wasn't a painless process.
I hate going to my local bank branch. There is a woman there that decided she didn't like me from the first day I walked in their door. She doesn't even try to hide her dislike. She sighs loudly at me, rolls her eyes and sometimes even refuses to talk to me. Today, she did all three.
I had to do a domestic bank transfer, a furikomi, if you will. The problem today was while it was to a Japanese company, in Japan, the invoice and banking details were written in English. Good for me, but apparently not for the bank. The sighing woman, sighed heavily, rolled her eyes and thrust a furikomi form at me. All in Japanese off course. I looked at her, I looked at the form and then I looked back up at her with what I hoped was my best "please help the illiterate gaijin" face. She sighed heavily, rolled her eyes and walked off.
The younger teller who I'd been thrust in front of looked at the furikomi form and looked at my invoice. Repeatedly. For about fifteen minutes. At the form, at the invoice, back to the form.... It was like watching a flea tennis match happening on the counter. I wasn't much better. In time with her worried "mmm"s and "ohhh"s, I looked that the form, looked at the invoice and looked at her. My "please help the illiterate gaijin" face had more effect on her, she was trying but just had no idea what to do. She ran to the sighing woman and was only sighed at and then ignored. I'd like to say that at least it's not just me that she sighs at and ignores, but I think really she was sighing and ignoring the other teller as an extension of me. If she helped her, then really she was helping me, and she certainly wasn't going to do that.
After running around a little more with a "please help the young teller" face, she came back to me and told me, "Please fill in the form." I had kinda figured that much, it was the how-to I was having problems with. I would have to translate everything from English into Japanese. I asked if it was OK if I wrote in romaji. That question caused another ten minutes of "mmm"s, "ohhh"s and "please help the young teller" faces.
Finally, another teller came back from lunch and to the rescue. She explained that I would have to fill in the form in kanji. I explained that while I didn't really write kanji, I could copy it if it was written for me. This lovely rescuer teller then filled out the form in kanji for me to copy, as the form could not be in their handwriting. When I handed it back to her, she was even kind enough to compliment my badly completed form.
After another 30 minutes in the bank, it and another furikomi through the ATM were complete.
Since my last post, I've been told of a bank with a branch in Nagoya that offers Internet banking in English. I think it's time to sign up for that!
Showing posts with label banking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label banking. Show all posts
Monday, June 04, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Grrrrr.....
Most of the time, Japanese service is superb. Most of the time. In fact, I just commented on someone's blog about it last night.
Paying bills however, can be a real pain. We have one utility bill that can be paid at a convenience store, so well, that one is convenient. We have another that needs to be paid at a bank - during banking hours. Every month, that one can be a problem as both Wayne and I work during bank hours so we have to try to work out who and when can go and pay it. It wouldn't be a problem if we had internet banking, but it's not a common service over here and is rarely offered in English. Another utility bill is paid, in cash to a person that turns up to our door once a month. She used to always come on a Thursday, so we were prepared, but now, she comes whenever she feels like it and can catch us unaware.
Japan is very much a cash society , but the ironic thing is that the ATMs have opening and closing times. Some close at about 9pm and won't open again until 8am. Some are also closed all day Sunday. An EFTPOS system doesn't exist and it's not that uncommon that places won't accept credit cards. I've never heard of people using cheques.
So cash it is.
The reason for my little whine today is that Wayne and I are booking our summer trip. I don't want to jinx myself by talking about it too much until everything is booked, but we are very excited about it.
We first went into a local travel agent, but they had real problems actually giving us a price, an answer about flight availability and any other questions that we had. Their price in the end was quite high.
So now, we've been trying to book our tickets on-line. I went to a Japanese site that offers a service in English and got two quotes for the flights we wanted. One took much longer to get back to me, but were a little cheaper. When I enquired about how I could book, I was told that I must come to their office in Nagoya during business hours to do so. What!!! Who ever heard of a travel agent that was closed on weekends!
The other agent got back to me very quickly but have made many errors with the booking time and time again. They seemed to be trying hard however and were always apologetic in their emails. So we decided to book with them, and they finally got all the details correct today. I have told them a number of times, right from the start, that I couldn't get into a bank until Monday because of work. They never said this was a problem, so I assumed it was all ok. Until today. They've told me that I must get into a bank to pay for it by Friday, or we may lose our tickets! There are times that I think that part of the reason many Japanese housewives don't work full-time is that they need to be able to deal with banking and bill paying during the day. How do people do it here otherwise?? If you work from nine to five and they don't offer a service outside of those hours, they don't accept credit card payments unless we physically go in during office hours, you can't pay over the net, the banks don't offer internet banking.... just how on earth do you deal with this stuff??
Mmmm.... can you tell I'm rather frustrated....?
Paying bills however, can be a real pain. We have one utility bill that can be paid at a convenience store, so well, that one is convenient. We have another that needs to be paid at a bank - during banking hours. Every month, that one can be a problem as both Wayne and I work during bank hours so we have to try to work out who and when can go and pay it. It wouldn't be a problem if we had internet banking, but it's not a common service over here and is rarely offered in English. Another utility bill is paid, in cash to a person that turns up to our door once a month. She used to always come on a Thursday, so we were prepared, but now, she comes whenever she feels like it and can catch us unaware.
Japan is very much a cash society , but the ironic thing is that the ATMs have opening and closing times. Some close at about 9pm and won't open again until 8am. Some are also closed all day Sunday. An EFTPOS system doesn't exist and it's not that uncommon that places won't accept credit cards. I've never heard of people using cheques.
So cash it is.
The reason for my little whine today is that Wayne and I are booking our summer trip. I don't want to jinx myself by talking about it too much until everything is booked, but we are very excited about it.
We first went into a local travel agent, but they had real problems actually giving us a price, an answer about flight availability and any other questions that we had. Their price in the end was quite high.
So now, we've been trying to book our tickets on-line. I went to a Japanese site that offers a service in English and got two quotes for the flights we wanted. One took much longer to get back to me, but were a little cheaper. When I enquired about how I could book, I was told that I must come to their office in Nagoya during business hours to do so. What!!! Who ever heard of a travel agent that was closed on weekends!
The other agent got back to me very quickly but have made many errors with the booking time and time again. They seemed to be trying hard however and were always apologetic in their emails. So we decided to book with them, and they finally got all the details correct today. I have told them a number of times, right from the start, that I couldn't get into a bank until Monday because of work. They never said this was a problem, so I assumed it was all ok. Until today. They've told me that I must get into a bank to pay for it by Friday, or we may lose our tickets! There are times that I think that part of the reason many Japanese housewives don't work full-time is that they need to be able to deal with banking and bill paying during the day. How do people do it here otherwise?? If you work from nine to five and they don't offer a service outside of those hours, they don't accept credit card payments unless we physically go in during office hours, you can't pay over the net, the banks don't offer internet banking.... just how on earth do you deal with this stuff??
Mmmm.... can you tell I'm rather frustrated....?
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