Do you have some link to the law in question? From what I know of the law I think that is not correct, but I am prepared to be proven wrong. I have certainly opened accounts quite recently in Taipei and Taichung City while my hukou and ARC are both in Taichung County. It is certainly true that some banks use the law as an excuse because they either don’t know how to open the account or can’t be bothered.
Again I would like to see a link to the legal text because I have used the same accounts mentioned above to withdraw money on business trips to the US and SE Asia.[/quote]
Ar, yes, well of course I don’t actually have a copy of it. I am of course only assuming there must be one as I have been told the same thing exactly from at least five banks now which I have asked at. Unless there is some stupid rumour going around, then I’m only assuming they can’t have all made it up.
Fool me twice though…
Well banks used to be secure places to put your money. They have since become the default method of defrauding the majority out of their savings though. They aren’t supposed to help you these days as much as help themselves and if they do, then there is likely a charge or a tax for it. I hate banks. I start grinding my teeth every time I get close to one. :fume:
Chinatrust sucks a big one, and that goes for Taiwanese or foreign customers alike.
My wife used to work there so I set up an account to make transfers easier between us. I quickly discovered it was more convenient to transfer from my Citibank account than make an internal transfer within Chinatrust.
Everything is hopelessly inefficient. For example, at Citibank I am usually literally in and out within 5 minutes. Everything is done electronically and I don’t have to fill out a bunch of forms just to exchange currencies within my own accounts, the teller just prints out a slip for me to sign. Whichever branch I tried at Chinatrust it took 25 minutes to even reach a teller then another 20 minutes to fill out a bunch of forms to make simple transactions. I eventually closed the account which took 2 1/2 hours plus 6 working days to get my money out.
When I first set up my Citibank account I told them what I needed and what I could offer them in terms of deposits and they arranged for their rep to come from Taipei to meet me in Taichung. To be fair the process was not exactly quick or completely painless but we handled the paperwork in a civilised way over tea in a private room of my preferred branch.
Opening an account at Chinatrust was a humiliating process where they made me stand at the counter with all my documents spread out for all to see. I had to go back 3 times to finish the process and I never got anything except an idiot-proof direct access account.
Well, it seems like it might’ve been as well that I didn’t get an account with them in the end after reading this.
The idea was that my GF could help me use their online banking, as it’s apparently really good (at least compared to other banks here).
Now I have to have accounts pre-approved before I can transfer money to them, how pointless is that for online banking?
Still, at least I got the accounts set up where I wanted them…
To add to the Chinatrust pile: It took them about 3 years to process repeated attempts on a simple change of address for my account. 2 years for my wife.
Citibank was light years better but I’ve noticed they have slipped somewhat lately as well.
[quote=“kelake”]To add to the Chinatrust pile: It took them about 3 years to process repeated attempts on a simple change of address for my account. 2 years for my wife.
Citibank was light years better but I’ve noticed they have slipped somewhat lately as well.
All our main bank accounts are off-island now.[/quote]
I’ve tried a couple of times to change address with Chinatrust and just gave up in the end. Now I just go to any branch, make a nuisance of myself and they seem to serve me. I’ve pretty much moved all my Chinatrust banking over to Taishin now - Taishin at least know what a proper debit card is and don’t impose restrictions on them for ARC holders.
I made an online purchase on RegNow in the US with my CT Visa card.
CT confirms after 30 seconds on my mobile the transaction being succesfull.
Guess what — regNow sends a mail to say the TX failed.
Calling CT resulted in “sorry Sir, we can not provide you a proof of the TX, please wait your next statement”…
Imagine you got THIS answer in any other country from your bank.
Well, I need to sort this out further and then up to the bank, cutting another Visa card in tiny pieces while giving them the bad eye.
I will just chime in in defense of ChinaTrust. Their willingness to extend certain products and services to foreign nationals varies considerably from branch to branch. I was rejected for a mortgage loan by their office on Chongqing S. Rd., but then accepted by their Banqiao branch. I’ve been doing all my banking with them since opening that account in mid 2008, and having opened the account in Banqiao, I now get full services through the Chongqing branch (nearer my office) that rejected me. They have been extremely helpful with everything I’ve ever asked of them since. Granted, I don’t do commercial banking, only personal banking, through them, and that may explain the difference in my experience and those of others earlier in the thread.
I just arrived and found my banking experience to be less than satisfactory. The working culture here is obviously affecting customer service that we are used in the west. Incidentally, I tried to exchanged my money from at China Trust the other day, the moment they told me that will charge an additional $300NT for $400 US as part of the transaction fee, I said no thanks and left.
After my previous positive post on Chinatrust, I’m feeling a little less kindly disposed to them now that I’ve learned they are charging me a 2 percent service charge on every MasterCard purchase I make outside of Taiwan. Does anyone know how this compares to other banks? (I don’t remember ever being charge a fee for using my MegaBank MasterCard outside of Taiwan.)
The 2% service charge should be for using another currency besides NT$ for Taiwanese cards or another currency if I use another currency besides US$ on my American cards, pretty standard. Visa and Mastercard use to charge 3% for foreign currency transactions.
This sound strange though, shouldn’t that just be on cash advances and not purchases? I never got charged extra on my credit cards in the UK cause I was in Europe or the US, not that I can remember anyhow.
No, most of us are indeed not charged on our overseas cards as exchange rates and yearly fee’s make up for that.
In Taiwan, where the majority of locals has 5 to 10 credit cards, each one benefitting of free parking, gifts at Mitsokoshi, discounts when purchasing above a certain threshold etc, they obviously need to recover these “services” offered.
Actually many financial institutions have a foreign exchange transaction fee. Recently I went for lunch and my Visa card was rejected, so I paid cash.
When I checked online banking I had an email from my bank that fraud had been detected on my account, and that the account was closed to prevent further fraud, and a new card sent to me. I did not need to fill out a dispute claim, and the funds were returned to my account from the fraudulent transactions.
I only have one visa card, never needed a collection.
[quote=“Satellite TV”]Actually many financial institutions have a foreign exchange transaction fee. Recently I went for lunch and my Visa card was rejected, so I paid cash.
When I checked online banking I had an email from my bank that fraud had been detected on my account, and that the account was closed to prevent further fraud, and a new card sent to me. I did not need to fill out a dispute claim, and the funds were returned to my account from the fraudulent transactions.
I only have one visa card, never needed a collection.[/quote]
On a positive note, this happened to me as well. I appreciated the issuance of a new card and the no-questions-asked about the ripped off funds. If they had only informed me before I tried to use that old card and got embarrassingly rejected, it would have been a totally positive experience. But considering everything that could have happened, it could have been much worse.
I also limit myself to a single credit card. Best that way IMO.
