They didn’t even tell me my “ID number” was something they made up. Almost walked out after setting up the account, only to notice the numbers on my mobile log in were clearly related to my birthday not my ARC. Their respond was “yeah, cuz this is how we had to set it up”. You weren’t going to tell me that if I didn’t ask?
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I wonder what the original logic of them setting it up like this was. There must have been some primordial foreigner, who’s now long gone, dead, or perhaps still on Forumosa, who needed to open a CTBC account but the system couldn’t handle it without a Taiwanese ID number… and this is what they came up with. It seems like it should be possible at this point to just use our ID numbers though, especially now we’ve been forced to switch to the new-and-not-improved format.
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You can in fact (since 3 years ago at least) log in to the app using your normal ID number.
However they haven’t yet bothered to actually link that to your accounts. So maybe 3 years ago they started to correct it and couldn’t be bothered
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Well that’s stupid AF. I opened my account with them this past January (2023)
Didn’t know that. So what happens when you do that then - are you saying that the app is just empty, and not linked to either your bank account or credit card…?
I’d try it on mine, but the silly made-up number is stored in my app and I’m not sure if/where I have it written down…
You will see only your bank account and not your credit card. It was a step forward that got me excited over 3 years ago when I discovered it but clearly that excitement was short lived…
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I try to set up everything here with my Chinese name because of some issue I ran into with that earlier, although idk if that was possible in your case.
just an outloud spur of the moment thought on a hypothetical:
in the situation you described. If one were to not pay their bill, and the powers that be dinged their credit history. could one sue for defamation. or perhaps some other fun law due to damaging ones reputation through no fault of their own?
I mean, their in house system not working is a fun one.
Seems more like sue for change, not to necessarily “win”. meaning, them changing would be the win.
Edited for beyond annoying autocorrect and typos. my phone screen is having issues.
That’s a good point – I actually don’t know what effect it had on my credit score, but I can easily imagine it counted against me.
Just to give a quick update.
CTBC just contacted me to tell me that they are now working to fix this problem once and for all (hopefully) and will give me an update next week.
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u mean on the IDs?
Yes the ID numbers. They will fix the system so as to remove these stupid numbers.
I asked for a timeframe but the best they could do is give me an update next week.
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Amazing they CTBC and other banks cannot do it without having someone complain to the financial ombudsman. Link the ombudsman site and have 500 foreigners complain about tax residency on forms, and other issues with banks.
That has been done already in other threads, but laziness is dominant. Very few ppl can be bothered to do something besides farting their complaints here.
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Was it the ombudsman mediation? Or some other approach?
Financial Ombudsman Institution and it hasn’t reached the actual mediation stage yet. They had 30 days to respond to my mediation request and after that I will get a date.
However they responded in 15 and obviously if they have a timeline to fix the issue I will deem that satisfactual… and then not push forward with mediation… but lets see what they say this week
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I’m kind of expecting them to come back with something worse than the current system. “To solve this problem, we have disabled the app for foreigners. Thank you for your inconvenience.”
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I am going to assume that this was not resolved. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I applied for a CTBC credit card in January 2024 and I was also given separate login credentials from my CTBC bank account. I asked my Taiwanese boss who said they can see both their bank account and credit card using one login.
I contacted CTBC customer services and they said foreigners require separate credentials for banking and credit cards. I wasn’t given a clear answer as to why it is this way other than that they will pass on my suggestion.
A positive is that you can pay off your credit card yourself using your bank account or ask the bank to set up auto-pay (a form of direct debit) to pay off your credit card bill when it is due.
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Why is that a positive? It’s just a normal feature AFAIK.
All of my bank accounts/credit cards allow this, even with the same login credentials for both.
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Based on what I’ve read, it was not so simple/available for people to do in the past for those that used CTBC’s services. The CTBC staff helped set it up very quickly. Less than 10 minutes if I recall correctly.
I don’t have any experience with other banking providers in Taiwan, although I agree it is a normal feature with non-Taiwanese banking providers outside of Taiwan.