Never again! 1 transaction - 3 different banks and more than 3 hours!

I recently had to make a tuition fee payment from here in Japan to a UK university via bank transfer and my experience caused me to reach the decision of never taking that route again.

I started at the JA Bank. I went to the local branch in my area because I’ve used it several times before for internal transfers. Naturally, I thought: bank>transaction> done and home.

After waiting my turn, armed with Google Translate, the university banking info, the money and my toddler I went to the teller.

I explained what I want to do. After about 5 minutes of the teller checking the bank info and consulting with seniors I was advised to go to the JP Post Bank down the road. 

I walked there and went through the same process only to be told that I needed to go to the Fuchu branch.

OK. I got on the next train and head there. 

I explained to an attendant in my best bare-minimal Japanese what I wanted to do. I was ushered to that area.

At the desk, I filled form after form with the information I was instructed to write, only to be told it was either the wrong info or it was placed in the wrong section. After about an hour I was asked for my residence card, bank card, passbook and hanko (stamp). I was told that the hanko was needed in order to update my address (I had recently moved apartments).

Unfortunately that was the first day I left home without my pouch containing said hanko.

Luckily my husband was able to bring it to me. 

After he arrived, I thought the teller who was handling the matter before would have just resumed since she was already privy to what I wanted done AND she was free.

Nope. Seemed she was happy to be rid of me. I had to start the entire shebang all over again with another person who spoke not even one solitary word in English. It took more than 3 hours of frustrating back and forth, form filling and verifications before the transaction was done. And even then I was told that there may be issues because I was transferring more than ¥100,000. I was literally stumped! This was tuition fees paid from my husband’s salary.

Having endured that along with a fussy toddler - for which there wasn’t even an iota of consideration - I have vowed I’d never try to do that type of transaction at the bank again.

I just hope I can get approval for a credit card very soon. If not, I will just opt to use my limited line prepaid JCB card and do multiple transactions. 

#badexperienceineverwantrepeated