Isn’t suggesting complaining users use the paper alternative just giving up on your app?
User complains they don’t respond to emails, EZ turd recommends they email their issue!
Many complaints about the Turd rejecting passwords that meet the criteria specified in the app., They respond with the vital information that a special character is required and they don’t update the criteria in the f^%king App!
The only 5 star rating in the last couple of months is also the only comment written in Chinese…
The incoming Minister of Digital Affairs is a man named Huang Yen-nun (黃彥男), best known for his work with Trade Van, which developed . . . (wait for it) . . . our beloved EZ WAY app.
Eh. Personally, I haven’t had much of a problem with EZWay/Tradevan. Not saying the app is good or anything special and I certainly wouldn’t vote for it to be given any awards, but I just see it as more of the same for foreigners living in Taiwan. It’s a bit shit, sure, but nothing new there.
IIRC, EZWay was pretty quick to accept foreigners/ARC numbers (maybe one year after it was first launched?*), they’ve had an English version for ages, and every time I’ve emailed them they were helpful and quick to respond (including passing on my feedback/complaints to Shopee about its implementation of EZWay for foreigners).
What has MODA done so far that’s better than this, from the perspective of a foreigner living in Taiwan? The MyData platform (Chinese only) is basically fine and does accept foreigners, but I didn’t find that particularly convenient to use either (partly, I think, because of systemic issues like mobile phone verification for foreigners. The Alien Citizen Digital Certificate was occasionally useful while I still had it, but the initial signup was very tedious for me (worse than EZWay and required multiple phone calls and I think two visits to immigration) and I don’t think they handled the ARC number update well (previous card becomes invalid and have to buy a new one).
I vaguely recall some discussions about including foreigners in some upcoming platform, but as far as I know that hasn’t happened yet, and our ARC numbers still can’t be easily verified online. Banking issues (and digital banking issues) continue to be as they were, and if any changes eventually happen I’d love to know what MODA has done to assist that.
Don’t get me wrong — it’s nice that @au has taken the time to contribute here and that’s definitely appreciated, but aside from that I’m struggling to see how EZWay is tangibly worse than the things so far developed by MODA or other organizations in Taiwan. So what differences are you expecting from this, @afterspivak?
[*Edit: I checked — it seems to have been 2.5 years. Launched September 2018, made available to ARC holders March 2021.]
Why was this EZ Way crap necessary anyway? I don’t remember doing an authentication process when I ordered overseas on Amazon 5 years ago. More useless red tape designed to annoy outsiders then.
I order stuff once every few years, I am really not a big consoomer of import goods at all. All I tried to order this year were 4 art books from Simon Stålenhag.
Of course the ARC number of my EZWay account was already expired, so I tried to update the ARC number in this piece of shit App - Of course it cannot be straight forward, can it? After all, this is Taiwan. It seems to detect all info on my ID when I took photos but mentioned that the ARC ID number is not the same (“Wow, captain obvious”) but didn’t let me change it directly in the App. No no no, this needs to be done through a human or automated system - we all know, these filthy foreigners cannot be trusted!
Anyway, why do I have to jump these hoops again? Ah right, I am living on fuckin Alcatraz, not Taiwan. We are all prisoners and in case of a doubt always guilty. They ship their fucking microchips around the world by the mega tons with some of the biggest harbours on the globe, but if I try to order a fucking art book online, it needs to be scrutinized ad nauseum - could be illegal knowledge in there!
Also the app looks like it was translated by a 5-year-old. Bilingual by 2030 my ass.
Okay, vented out that internal steam cooker pressure. Thank you for listening! It really helped getting the immediate anger of my chest.
Right, these damn foreigners, how dare they order cheap plastic crap into Taiwan. Taiwan should be the one selling its plastic crap into the world, not the other way around! After all, this is plastic island, where plastic straws need to be wrapped in plastic, so they stay clean before we push them through a film of plastic into a plastic cup filled with GMO animal food grade soy milk.
As the Taiwanese would say “My balls are on fire” right now…
You need to create a new account. Mildly annoying, sure, but not the end of the world.
From EZWay, November 2023:
The ID number is not editable.
If you have a new ARC, please logout of your old account first,
then register for a new EZ Way account with your new ARC ID number.
If the system shows “This account is already exists”, it means that the account ID you entered has been registered,
please register with different account ID, the email address and phone number can be the same as your old account.
If the order information has been imported with the old residence permit number, please ask the customs broker to obtain a “paper appointment” to confirm the order information, and the goods can be imported smoothly
If you still have questions, please contact us, thank you.
