Bank of Stupid
Written By: Due-East on September 27, 2011
4 Comments
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| Allow me to vent for a second about a sterling example of typical Chinese customer disservice I ran into today. Last week, I lost my wallet getting out of a taxi. That was my own dumb fault; I should’ve been more aware of my personal belongings when I got out. Of course, in my wallet were my credit cards from my American bank as well as my ATM card from Bank of China. |
| It was extremely frustrating, yes. But as frustrated as I was, I thought, “It’s no big deal. I only lost a couple hundred Renminbi, not American dollars. So I’ll just contact my bank in the states to get a new credit card and a new bank card issued. And since I’m planning to move in a week, and China’s banking system is outright retarded, I’m going to have to close my bank account here and open a new one in the new city anyway. I’ll just do that, and everything will be OK.” |
| When I got home, I called my bank’s customer service number to get my credit card replaced. The customer service agent was competent and helpful, and he did everything you’d expect from someone whose sole purpose is to serve you. He sympathized with me (not that I needed that, but it was a nice gesture), checked my card to make sure there were no new purchases made with it, canceled my old number, and issued me a new card with a new number. Then, he kindly connected me with someone who could help me replace my ATM card. That customer service agent was awesome, too. The whole process was totally painless and took about 3 minutes. My new cards should arrive within a few weeks. It was glorious! Now, I don’t want this to sound like a pro-America post, because it’s not. I’m not remotely patriotic and consider myself a human being much more than a citizen of any country, but when I hung up the phone, I really missed America because 99 times out of 100, that’s how quickly and easily things are handled back home. That’s just not how it works over here, though. |
| Before I get into how things went down today, let me educate you a bit on the Chinese banking system as I know it. In America, if you open an account at Bank of America or Chase or whatever other bank you wanna use, no matter where in the whole country you are, if you go to a branch of that bank to withdraw money (be it via ATM or in person), you are NOT charged a fee. Why would you be charged a fee when it’s the same company, right? That makes perfect sense to a Westerner and is totally reasonable. But in China, it’s the exact opposite because so many things here aren’t remotely close to being anywhere near what might be considered in some circles as halfway around the block from the area where reasonable once played as a young child. Here, it’s more like, “Well, this isn’t the city where you opened the account, and so we’re gonna have to charge you a handling fee because it’s a lot harder for us to press a button here on our computer than it is for someone to press a button on their computer in the city where you opened your account. Plus, I’d rather play with my cell phone than do any actual work.” |
| So this is the basic situation as it played out today: |
| Me: I’m moving, and I’d like to close my account. Girl behind the glass: Let me see your ATM card. Me: I don’t have my card. I lost my wallet last week… Girl behind the glass: Oh, just fill this out. Write your English name here, again here, your phone number here, your address here, and then sign down here. Me: Ok….Here you go. Girl behind the glass: Ok, you can come get your money in 7 days. Me: I’m sorry..? Girl behind the glass: You can get your money in 7 days. Me: Why can’t I get it now? Girl behind the glass: Because you lost your card. You have to wait 7 days before you can withdraw your money. Most people who lose their cards end up finding them, so you have to wait 7 days before you can close your account. Me: Why? That doesn’t make sense. My closing my account has absolutely nothing to do with my having lost my card. I’m closing my account so that I can re-open an account in the new city where I’m moving to so I don’t have to get charged a fee every time I wanna withdraw money. Girl behind the glass: That’s the rule. Me: But this has NOTHING TO DO WITH MY HAVING LOST MY CARD! This is totally unreasonable… Girl behind the glass: The rules are the rules. You can only do your best to take care of the majority, but you can’t always take care of the minority. Me (hoping to guilt her into actually trying to help): Back in America, regardless of whether I had my card or not, this process would take 2 minutes, and I’d be done. Girl behind the glass (apparently trying to defend her native land): This system we use isn’t Chinese. It’s from another country. Me: What country is it from? Girl behind the glass: I don’t know. I think it’s from America. Me: Well, whatever country it’s from, America, France, Japan, whatever…it makes no sense. Girl behind the glass (refusing to acknowledge her power to ignore the rule and treat me like a person): You can wait until you get to your new city and then tell them the situation, and then 7 days later you can close your account. Me (sighing): Will there be a fee involved in closing my account and then opening a new one down there? Girl behind the glass: Yes. Me: How much? Girl behind the glass (looking at my balance): XXX ren min bi Me: Wait a sec. So, because of your silly rule, which has NOTHING to do with my reason for closing my account, I have to pay an extra fee to close my account in another city and then open up a new one?! Girl behind the glass (smiling for some reason): Yes… |
| It was extremely frustrating. Since I had absolutely no intention of ever using my bank card again and didn’t care if I ever found it, could it possibly have hurt for her to just let me close my account and move on with my life?! NO. But “that’s the rule” is an all-too-common response to so many things here. Even something as simple as substituting a Sprite for a Coke at McDonald’s could easily lead to a battle of wills, depending on how much 关系 (guanxi) you have with the person behind the counter. Dealing with that kind of thing is just one of those 没办法 (mei ban fa – nothing you can do about it) situations. Tomorrow, I’m gonna try round 2. I figure I’ll go to another branch and pretend I don’t speak a word of Chinese. When they ask for my ATM card, I’ll just tell them I don’t have my wallet with me. If they still don’t let me close my account, I’ll just withdraw all but one RMB and be done with them. I’ll post the outcome then… |
| ***UPDATE*** |
| OK, so I went to the bank today (a different branch) and tried to take out all of my money save for 1rmb, but they insisted that I HAD to have my card to withdraw money. I asked if they could just look my information up based on my passport and then withdraw the money. The man insisted that they had to swipe my card to withdraw anything. So I pressed the “Very Dissatisfied” button on their service rating machine and walked out. Pressing the button felt good, but I’m sure nobody even pays attention to what customers think being that the current result is 1 out of 4 stars and the service still sucks. So, here’s a PSA for anybody living in China: If you have some kind of medical emergency and lose your bank card and need your money for a life-saving operation inside seven days of having reported your card as lost, you’re pretty much dead. Try not to lose your wallet and come within inches of death in the same week. |
Tags: china, Culture Clash, Expat story, mafan
HSBC China recently gave me a bedraggled pile of notes over the counter. I queried their condition and was told they were fine.
Unconvinced, I asked to deposit them back immediately, to which they replied that they weren’t of high enough quality to accept…
I had a friend with nearly the exact same problem. Pull out all but one RMB, and then just never close the account. Since the banks are not in any substantive way connected, they have no idea if you have an account somewhere else. Save yourself the headache and take the easy way out.
I like to think that bank of China is losing tens of dollars (or more) managing accounts with 1rmb in them simply because they were too stubborn to let a foreigner close the stupid account with out their stupid ATM card.
Steve – It’s funny, right? When you go to the bank, they hand you some garbage bills, but when you go to deposit money, you can only bring in perfectly crisp, unused bills. For as filthy as the money that exchanges hands here is, they sure do worry a lot about bill quality.
Tom – I think I’ll take your advice and just make it easy on myself. IF they’ll let me take all but one RMB out without my actual card in my hand. You never know when the old “make up a regulation on the spot” game will pop up around here.
Well… you can at least be thankfull that you don’t need to make money exchange in China! They came up with the most ridiculos rules just to make you waste a whole day (sometimes many days) in something that should take 2 minutes.
At least this is a one time thing, and hopefully you won’t have to go throw it again anytime soon!
加油!!
(PS. Maybe you should try with ICBC, so far they have been pretty decent in my case)