I save a set amount each month with a particular company, who in turn invest it. This is basically because even before I came to Japan I worked for a financial adviser, and one of the guys there gave me some pretty good advice: “don’t rely on the government for your retirement”. This seems equally valid advice in Japan, as by all accounts the pension system is struggling under the weight of having to keep paying out to an increasingly large number of people who insist on living to 90 or more.
Anyway. Last month, the company in question sent me (and presumably everyone else) an email saying that due to a problem with some banking system, the regular amount was not taken from our accounts, and would we please be so kind as to do it manually just this one time. Fair enough, it happens, computer systems go down, no great imposition, and it hasn’t happened before. At least not since I’ve been paying into it.
Then the funny part came. Roughly paraphrased, “to make up for the inconvenience to the honourable customer, we are providing compensation of 200 yen”. I hadn’t even considered the idea of compensation for something like this, but there it was. I thought that might have been a typo for 2000, but apparently not. 200. Two cans of coffee from a vending machine or thereabouts.
I know that Japan’s about to be leapfrogged by Germany as the third largest economy, but I couldn’t help but find that funny.
Anyone else had these “double take” offers of compensation?
by Tasty_Comfortable_77