Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!CALA-MUZIK!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!newsfeed.s-kddi1.home.ne.jp!news.home.ne.jp!newsfeed2.kddnet.ad.jp!newsfeed2.kddnet.ad.jp!nf.asahi-net.or.jp!not-for-mail From: "Shannon Jacobs" Newsgroups: fj.life.in-japan Subject: More dealings with SMBC--so how do you feel about Japanese banks? Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 14:27:13 +0900 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="utf-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2869 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2962 Lines: 184 Message-ID: <44deb831$0$7433$44c9b20d@news3.asahi-net.or.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: j081244.ppp.asahi-net.or.jp X-Trace: 1155446834 news3.asahi-net.or.jp 7433 61.213.81.244 X-Complaints-To: ap-net@asahi-net.or.jp Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.life.in-japan:164147 [A copy for your edification and amusement. No. Actually, it's just a more convenient editor before cutting-and-pasting to the webform. But feel free to knock yourselves out. You always do.] I am not going to apologize for writing in English. In fact, my experiences with your company over the years have consistently been one of the strongest justifications for giving up on any attempt to use Japanese. That I continue to study the language is certainly no thanks to you--but you've certainly reduced my enthusiasm for study and done everything you could possibly do to make it seem pointless. I just have to laugh when anyone mentions your company in any 'international' context, in spite of your pretensions. I don't even care if there is anyone there who can read beyond "I want to pay you your money." That's the only point you really need to understand. At this time, my primary concern is to make sure you get paid every yen you are due. A secondary concern is to state clearly and for the record that I regard this entire incident as *YOUR* fault, and if I find out that you are playing any revengeful games, like trying to poison my financial history, I will not tolerate it, but will act to defend my reputation. I (obviously) think it is *YOUR* reputation that needs the defending. I think we need to start with a bit of background of my dealings with your company. Now I already know you're going to say it's really a different company. Oh. So why do you use the same name? Sorry, but from *MY* perspective as the customer I see every company with the name of 三井住友 (SMBC in English) as being part of the same entity. If you don't want to share their reputation, good and bad, then you should use a different name. Actually, considering how bad I think your reputation is, I'm kind of amazed that any of your shells and affiliates use the name in public. Seeing that logo, I certainly regard it as a significant reason not to do business with that company, but we'll come back to that soon... Ancient history: I've been a customer of your bank for many years. That was not actually my free decision. Many years later I found out it was actually illegal for you to "strongly recommend" (= "secretly require") companies to insist on paying their employees through your bank. It was just one of those 'understandings' as part of other financing, but the consequence was that my employer strongly recommended that I do business with you, even though I had been using a different bank and was (and remain) basically satisfied with that bank. I actually recall it as insistence. Congratulations on having obtained my business. NOT. I also want to put your bank into the broader context. As just noted, yours is not the Japanese bank with which I have done business for the longest time, nor is it the bank with which I do the most business now. When I first came to Japan, I worked for a different company, and they strongly recommended I do business with a different bank. (Just the unethical Japanese way of banking?) Considering that I've had very few problems with that bank over the years, you'd think they would be my primary bank, but unfortunately they have relatively few locations. Also, for the routine services I use on a weekly basis, their service is substantially the same as yours. Primarily by 'virtue' of having swallowed a large number of smaller banks, you simply have the advantage in convenience of more cash card machines. My problems with your bank mostly involved paperwork. (The cash card machines have always seemed to like me.) Right from the beginning, it became pretty clear that it was virtually impossible for me to prepare paperwork to your satisfaction. Each form always had to be done two or three times until you were satisfied. It didn't matter how simple the form was, nor how carefully I had prepared it. Sometimes I asked a Japanese person to review the form before submitting it, just to see if they could see any problems. None of this mattered. There was always something wrong and it was always necessary for me to do the paperwork two or three times before it would be accepted. In contrast to other banks and agencies, your bank would apparently not even accept corrections, but insisted on completely fresh paper. I made some adjustments. First, I tried to minimize the paperwork at your bank. I now use your bank almost solely for cash card transactions. Second, all new automatic deposits and payments were set up with a different bank (and I live in dread of the day when I must cancel the ones that are still at your bank, since that will require filling in forms). Finally, whenever any form did need to be filled out for your bank, I insisted on being carefully 'walked through' the form by one of your employees. By doing the form as directed on an almost letter-by-letter basis, there was a better chance the employee in question would accept it. After all, the form was practically the employee's own work by that point. Sometimes I speculated about the possible reasons for these problems. For example, I considered whether or not it might be a racist policy to get rid of foreign customers. Just a bunch of annoying troublemakers? [This long letter is certainly evidence of that!] Or maybe it was more personal? Perhaps one of your bankers had entered a code on my records to indicate that this customer has trouble with forms and that all of his paperwork needs to be checked very carefully? Maybe that warning is the first thing your employees see whenever they pull up my records? However, my carefully considered opinion is that it actually reflects your personnel policies. I think your strong preference is to hire a certain kind of obedient drone, a person who has no imagination or flexibility and who is completely unable to deal with the smallest deviations from precise expectations. I think you also have a rule against corrected forms. Today's [admittedly discursive] joke is that in my most recent visit to your bank [We're eventually going to get there. Be patient.] I noticed that your banking computer system is apparently called something like the 'workflow innovation system'. It was prominently visible in (yo-ho-ho) English on a terminal off to the side. I would certainly agree that I've never seen a company more in need of innovation than yours--but I also think you've carefully built a workforce that is utterly incapable of innovative behavior. Congratulations. NOT. This most recent business with your corporation actually involves a credit card you issued to me. I don't blame the bookstore employee who encouraged me to apply for it, so I'm not going to finger the bookstore here. It was a big campaign at the store, I buy too many books, he spoke excellent English, and his discount book pitch finally overcame my resistance. When I discovered it involved your company, I almost wised up enough to run away, but sadly for all of us, I did not. Actually, part of the persuasive sales pitch was the appearance of one of your employees who was assisting with the campaign. My (yo-ho-ho) theory was that he would walk me through the form and there would be no problem. Actually, apart from your bank, I have little trouble with Japanese forms these years. A bit more background and a bit of related criticism. [Heaven forbid.] I don't particularly like credit cards, though I have used them for many years--elsewhere, for security, and in Japan, just for the sake of convenience. I actually had credit cards issued in other countries, but for whatever mysterious reasons, they just didn't seem to be accepted in Japan, so I finally applied for a Japanese credit card. However, this new trend of store-specific credit-and-customer-loyalty cards linked to special discounts is a really dumb idea. The whole idea of cash is the convenience of using it anywhere. Call me a raging capitalist, but I think competition is a good thing--but not very feasible if I'm required to carry special plastic money for each of the stores that could be competing against each other. Or is this really a plot to sell jumbo wallets? By the way, I do want to thank you for rejecting that first credit card application (after a couple of iterations) some years ago. I'm sure you saved me a great deal of frustration. Other companies were only too willing to give me credit cards. Actually, I'm pretty sure I was first conned into applying for a credit card at your bank as part of some kind of promotion. I certainly should not have allowed myself to be fooled again into making this recent application. Now let's get back to this new bookstore-related credit card. With the assistance of your employee I submitted the application and they accepted it. I didn't have my hanko with me, but they assured me that would be taken care of later. A few days later, I received a form, and in accord with my policy, I went down to your bank and got someone to walk me through filling out and stamping of the form. A while later, I received your credit card. I should have suspected something was wrong, since it always is with your corporation. However, by this time you'd had weeks to check things over, and I foolishly decided to trust you. I went to the bookstore and bought a couple of books. Two weeks later, I went back to the bookstore and bought some more books. Then I received an envelope with some forms from your company. There was apparently something wrong with my paperwork. What a shock. NOT. Now we've finally reached my most recent visit to your bank. I took my hanko and the forms. I was directed to a different floor. I took my number. I was called to the desk. I handed over the papers and made it clear that I wanted to do whatever you wanted done to fix the problem, whatever the problem was. The woman read the papers for a few moments. She examined my gaijin card carefully. She then showed me where to write something and where to stamp my hanko on the horrendous mistake. It seemed the problem had been rectified. Then she looked at it a bit more, and changed her mind. That was apparently insufficient, and some new forms needed to be filled out. Apparently she'd remembered the rule about corrected forms. Or whatever. In one sense, I feel I should apologize for my next actions. It was an essentially angry decision. However, I think I should really apologize for ever having filed the application in the first place. What happened was that I reached my limit. I decided to terminate the entire business. I asked her for a pair of scissors. I took the credit card out of my wallet, cut it into two pieces. I returned the scissors, left the forms and the credit card pieces on the desk, took my gaijin card, and left the bank. She was apparently upset by this denouement. I do not like upsetting people, and I am sorry I upset her, but everyone has limits, and you had reached mine. Now we're back to the beginning. I owe you some money for the books I've received. I look forward to paying you by whatever mutually convenient method you specify. If you require I make a trip to your office with the cash, it will have to wait at least until the 21st. I also wish I could forget that this entire business had ever occurred. As an encouragement to your prompt handling of this matter, I am now informing you that I will probably share this letter in public places such as my website. If you provide a persuasive and reasonable explanation of your actions and somehow manage to convince me that public censure is undeserved, then I will either post your response after my comments, or even remove my public comments. I'm even willing to apologize if I've made a mistake. However, right now I think my biggest mistake is to continue doing business with any organization which is in any way affiliated with you.