I was shopping for simcards at the nearby Bic Camera, and sat down with the sales guy. He offers me a plan I quite like, and I end up signing the contract with AU.
Now, here’s where it gets a bit weird. My Japanese is mediocre at best, which means I misunderstand a lot of sentences, and get by with context and a whole lot of “すみません、も一回言ってください”. From what I gathered, the sales guy asks if my phone can support 5g, to which I answer that I do not think so. Then he starts tapping stuff on his tab, and he pulls out a galaxy A23 5g, to my bewilderment. Then he says that I have to pay 1 yen for this phone, and I can use this as a router or something (here I might have missed a bunch of details).
Dumb me, mentally tired from extended conversations in Japanese, decided to just give it the okay and fork over my 1 yen. So now I’ve got my simcard and a brand new phone, for what seems like a down payment of just 1 yen(?) Sales guy even tells me I don’t have to return the damn phone.
Basically my question to those of you probably more used to this, did I just walk into a weird marketing trap where I’m gonna look straight at a 36000 yen bill the moment I cancel my contract, or is this just how sim card purchases work in Japan?
For context, I live in Osaka, my monthly payments with all the discounts amount to 1600ish yen, and my first payment is around 5000 yen. I am 19 yrs of age, if that’s relevant too.
2 comments
He signed you on a two year contract, a signing bonus for the contract was a budget phone. Since you were unsure about your current phone, he just threw it in. Not sure if there’s an extra cancellation fee for this–look in the bundle of paperwork you got in the end.
There might be a cancellation period within the contract. Read it.
Yeah these phones are almost worthless so they just throw it in to reel customers in for an MNP to their carrier.
A friend got a pixel 6a for 4600¥, no strings attached.