Went to T-Star to sign a new mobile contract today. 2 years ago I tried as well, but they required a guarantor and my wife was busy.
This time I came prepared, I brought my wife.
We go through the whole process, relatively smooth. Then at the end, I’m reviewing my personal details on the contract and discover they’ve listed my my passport number as my ID number.
If you don’t know, this is a huge issue, as it will mean you can’t do phone number verification on government online services, such as the NHI app, the tax platform, or the myData platform, among others.
I asked them to update the contract to my ARC number instead of my passport number, but they said they can only use the ARC number if the ARC has no expiry date, e.g. APRC…
This means that if you don’t have an APRC and sign up for T-Star, you won’t be able to log in to many government online services via phone number verification.
And some passport numbers change on renewal! e.g. German Passport
While the ARC numbers don’t change (*unless the Taiwanese government has a stupid idea once)
I had this problem years ago with Taiwan mobile. Despite me having an ARC at the time, they signed me up with my passport number. When it changed after passport renewal they kept asking to see a document with my old passport number on, and I was still waiting for it to be returned to me.
Best head off to FET then. My partner and I walked into our local FET store last Friday and 15 minutes later emerged with a post-paid plan in my name (ARC) without any hassles at all.
I had FET for a month when I moved here, it was the mobile operator giving out the temporary SIM cards at the airport for the quarantine. Reception was solid.
Now I’m with TW mobile and besides the hiccup of being still registered under my passport and not with my ARC, cannot complain that much. Signal is stable and pretty good coverage, only in some basements couldn’t get any signal while CHT could, but for instance CHT doesn’t have good service in my area in Dahu Park in Neihu, while TW mobile is pretty solid. I did some tests with FET and was comparable to TW mobile. But I get a decent deal thanks to the fubon TW mobile card, getting 5% cashback on my subscription plus some store credit.