declan_murphy@hotmail.com wrote:
> jwb@csse.monash.edu.au wrote:
>>Michael Cash <mikecash@buggerallspammers.com> dixit:
> 
> Last time I visited Cambridge (the other one) I went to 4 or 5 banks
> trying to change yen (cash) into USD. Same "do you have an account with
> us" BS. I'd only been in Sepponia 6 hours or so. Everytime I gets the
> shits with the staff at UFJ I find the easiest way to relax is to
> remember that at least it isn't a sepponian bank.

Many years ago, when I worked for a major motorcycle manufacturer, I
needed dollars and stopped off at the branch of Union Bank closest to
the US headquarters of my employer.  This was about a year after the
ichi-man bills changed from Shotoku-taishi to Fukuzawa.  I handed over
10 man and they went and got this big picture book of the world's
currency and flipped to the page on Japan ... which not only had only
the old 1, 5, and 10 thousand yen notes (before the ones that had gotten
replaced the year before), but also showed a 100 and 500 yen note.

Maybe I shouldn't have laughed when I realized how clueless they were.
They tried to keep my money and threatened to call the FBI to report me
for fraud, which I invited them to go ahead and do.  Eventually this
red-faced Super Protestant dickhead handed me back the bills and ordered
me to get out of "his" bank immediately or face the consequences.  A
couple of locally based Japanese staff were with me and dragged me out
or I would have taken him up on his offer.  I finally got dollars by
going to Mitsubishi Bank in Los Angeles, about 60 miles up the road.
Found out later that the company got wind of the exchange problem (not a
big leap since one of the guys with me was the Japanese head of
accounting) and subsequently closed all of their accounts at Union Bank.

CL