This is basically just a rant for catharsis, so that I can get this off my chest and move on. Haha.
I’m buying a house so I’ve been applying for mortgages from a few banks, shopping around for a good rate. One of the banks – au jibun bank – had very attractive rates advertised, so I applied with them as one of my options.
They’re an Internet bank, so of course my expectations for customer service were fairly low to begin with, but it’s just a mortgage application, so I thought there was benefit in seeing my options.
When initially entering my name in the system, of course the first box says 全角kanji only, so I try to enter 全角roman letters, as that is how my name is displayed on my IDs. First, try and I doesn’t go through because of a system error. I figure it might be that there was a space between my first and middle name, so I try again with 全角 roman letters and no space. Their system is quite annoying, because in order to re-enter my name, I also had to re-enter all of the other information on the page (address, contact info, desired borrowing amount, etc. etc.). Second try also gets the error. So, I go through the whole thing once more and enter my name in Katakana. Finally, it goes through. Fine.
I get through the pre-approval quickly, they call me and confirm a few things, tell me I can proceed with the main assessment. Everything seems good.
It takes maybe a week to get all the documentation in order (and all the file sizes compressed), but I upload my real estate contract and all the required documents. Not too difficult.
They contact me again, saying everything looks good, but I also have to apply for an account with their bank. Ok, all very standard.
I apply for the bank account. A few days pass and I get an email saying that I must upload additional paperwork related to my additional “tax residency” in my home country, bla bla bla. It’s quite a pain but I do it. I’m used to it by now.
After all this, I FINALLY get an email today (probably auto-generated, no-reply address) saying that my bank account application was denied because my name does not match the name on my ID docs.
I’m done. Au jibun bank can kindly go fuck themselves.
I already had an issue with this earlier this year when my tax return was delayed and didn’t make it into my account because of the same issue (even though I filled it out while physically at the tax office and was instructed by the staff there to enter my name exactly as that).
Anyhow, if you don’t have a kanji name, please don’t waste your time with Au jibun bank or any institution that has applications that start with “full-width kanji only” inputs.
Rant over. Thanks for listening.
(By the way, MUFJ and Sony bank still seem pretty cool so far…)
by irishtwinsons