As for me, I personally felt having to pay a deposit or get a guarantor, when locals didnât, was an admission that I was a second class resident. Especially because at that time, when I was shopping for providers, I had been a permanent resident with a seven-year history of contributing to Taiwanâs economy and tax coffers.
Since there were other options out there I chose one of those . Iâve never felt like a âlesserâ during the seven years Iâve been a customer of Taiwan Mobile.
Anyway, whenever I need to change to the new ARC number I hope I donât run into the hassles that you have. Very frustrating!
Changing the ID number makes it easier for foreigners to participate in society and business. But these foreigners just keep complaining⊠\s
My theory is that they initially wanted to unify the ID numbers with the Taiwanese ones, received some backslash and what they ended up with was some sort of âcompromiseâ (read: The numbers get a bit more similar, but one can still tell them apart from the citizens ID numbers)âŠ
While the switch has been relatively painless (apart from having to explain the situation to a clueless Taiwan Post Office/Bank teller, waiting a few hours at another bank to update my credit card â which no longer supports automatic payments, updating my scooter insurance information, being forced to get a new NHI card â which doesnât function and doesnât have my vaccination stickers â despite clear instructions that a new card wasnât necessary, etc.) I can discern no way in which the change has improved or simplified my life in any way.
P.S. I moved from the predecessor of âTaiwan Starâ (I forget the name at the moment) to Chunghwa Telecom ïŒäžèŻé»äżĄïŒwith no need for a guarantor and to keep my original number. At least, with this service provider, we are all treated equally. Equally poorly . I signed up for their VIP program because I was using my phone lot and I needed unlimited internet access. This does give me some leeway and some advantages in terms of delaying my payments or getting my phone reactivated. However, as I posted before, they expected me to listen in detail to their (fully robotic Mandarin) spam calls in order to know that current status of my home MOD service even after certifying that I wanted it cancelled over a year ago. 10k down the toilet in that case
What if you justâŠDidnât let them know of the new number? Everything remains the same I would think. The only trouble might be if you want to buy a new phone from them in the future.
The big 3 carriers 10-15 years ago did require a foreigner deposit, but I complained and over my time in Taiwan all 3 waived it. I believe the big 3 no longer have any foreigner restrictions. Chunghua and FET were $2800 and I think Taiwan mobile was $2400.
The final 2 carriers one would think being smaller would be more foreigner friendly to pick up clients but they are actually the worst.
Iâm sure it wouldnât matter. If they want to know the new number they can ask. Itâs just what Iâd do personally lol. Too lazy to chase around jobsworths, after hearing that half of them have no idea what to do with the new number anyway.
Itâs important the ID number attached to your phone contract is correct, since some government apps use your phone number to verify your identity, like NHI app.
They did that to me to and it was a passport number from 2 passports back which I didnât have anymore so had to go into their office. Chinatrust also doesnât use your ARC, they have their own weird number they assign foreigners.
Now that I think about it, a similar thing happened to me with CTBC last year. Updating ARC number was a piece of cake, which left me quite surprised because I was expecting the usual nonsense. However, for some reason I canât use my new ARC number to access online banking but need to enter a complicated code that they gave me as a substitutive ID.
Quick question. I helped someone file their taxes online using their old ARC number (because thatâs the number on their NHI card used to file), although they do also have the new number, and theyâre due a refund.
Am I correct in thinking that the bank account used for the refund should match the old ARC number, or does it not matter? They have several bank accounts registered to their new number and one still registered to their old number, but they didnât have the details for the latter to hand yesterday.
Iâd quite like to click the âupload filing dataâ button so I can close the tax software and change my region setting back before it balls more things up (so far itâs updated my currency settings in Excel from ÂŁ to NT$ ).
Thanks! (For both answers - I wasnât sure which thread was more suitable.)
Thatâs what I thought Iâd read as well. Itâs weird though, because I thought weâre technically obligated to update our bank details with our new numbers when we get them, which means nobody should have their old ARC numbers still on file at their bank. Conversely, weâre supposedly not required to update our NHI cards, which means people could still file taxes with their old number (as happened here) without being able to provide a bank account with the old number.
Mine sent me a letter by snail mail saying I need to come in with the new ARC. When I got there with the new deets, it wasnât terribly painful, but they had to issue a new credit card. That kind of screwed me up as I had my old credit card in some vendor systems for work stuff, and I just forgot about it. I just found out today one vendor was about to cancel my account.
So automatically would not be my choice of word for this update.
None of my banks automatically updated it either. On Tuesday I went to Cathay to update it, and it was also relatively painless, but three days later it doesnât actually seem to be updated yet.
How long did it take? I spent two hours at Mega yesterday updating my information. âItâs basically the same procedure as opening a new account!â said the lady in a cheerful voice.
. I signed up for their VIP program because I was using my phone lot and I needed unlimited internet access. This does give me some leeway and some advantages in terms of delaying my payments or getting my phone reactivated. However, as I posted before, they expected me to listen in detail to their (fully robotic Mandarin) spam calls in order to know that current status of my home MOD service even after certifying that I wanted it cancelled over a year ago. 10k down the toilet in that case 
).
s from me for today, 
