JP Post bank cash card issues – how to get access outside Japan

Hi Reddit. Posting here as I’m absolutely tearing my hair out and hitting brick wall after brick wall in how to get access to an account.

(I’ll update this with the specific details of the account in question when I have the documents, currently away from home. However I will continue with what I can recall.)

I have a cash card and passbook, which was used for my Japanese wages and helped set up by my workplace at the time. I used my workplace residence/accommodations and had a Japanese SIM card/phone number, which I used to register the account.

I was working in Japan just before covid and had to leave very quickly during lockdown so wasn’t able to get it sorted before I left. I tried to get it switched over to a debit card type account and online banking using the address I was at the time, and had help from a Japanese colleague to try and set it up, but for some reason it didn’t work and I didn’t have enough time at that address to wait for the process again before having to leave the country.

I keep searching on the jp post bank to see what I can do but confused and hitting walls not having access to the right info.

Any help and advice on this would be great, save for just having a holiday there to go and get my money back, I have no clue how to get it 😭

Thanks in advance.

by smol_sasquatch