There must be a way
September 05, 2006
Today I did not go to work. Officially my throat was dry and cracked and not in shape for a day of preaching. Having a mental holiday also helped too. I was considering spending the day sleeping in and playing Neverwinter Nights all day but as tempting as that was, today became a day of getting shit fixed.
I discovered this morning that my external hard drive was not being recognized by my computer. That’s 120g of crap I’ve collected over four years, and not all of it is porn. Amongst the entire library of movies, tv shows, and music, the thing I fear losing the most is my entire collection of pictures. Yup. I put all my eggs in one basket – literally thousands upon thousands of pictures. Right now I’m using some random software to try to restore the drive but I fear bringing the thing into a shop and have the pro tell me it can’t be recovered. I will cry.
Next I finally got around to cashing in a money order from a medical claim several months back (I’m that backlogged in chores). At least I thought I was going to be cashing it in. I bring it to Resona, where the woman has an account that has become the household expense account. My name is not on there but I had the bank book, the bank card, and the PIN. Plus I’m putting money INTO the account. Who cares right? Well, first, the money order was addressed from HSBC New Zealand to HSBC Tokyo. So this branch needed to forward it to their Tokyo branch who would do their magic bank thing and ask HSBC for money. In turn they’ll forward the money back to this branch. Only, to put it into our account, the woman would need to be there. Bah. The guy said I could open an account and they’ll just put the money in there but I don’t need another bank account and I didn’t have my stupid stamp. So I gave up.
Side note: major business transactions are conducted via a dollar stamp with your name on it in Japan. It’s ridiculous as anyone who has this stamp has fiduciary power. Signatures are not always used even though it’s much harder to forge a signature. I completely feel this practice is old fashioned and troublesome as most people do not carry the stamp on a day to day basis.
I ran across the street to UFJ, or rather, MUFG now, where I have an account. Same shit. Only, more shit. We moved a few months ago so I needed to update their stupid database. I needed to fill out this change of address form which, yup, I needed my stupid stamp to validate it. So, I go home (a mere 5 min walk) to retrieve the stupid stamp. Coming back, I fill in more forms. Here’s yet another long bureaucratic process. From this branch, they would forward it to my home branch in Shinsaibashi (the branch where this account was opened), in turn, they’ll forward it to Tokyo. Time I need to wait: about 2 weeks. Eep. That’s $700 just sitting in bank limbo for two weeks.
The whole process took two hours. I hate Japanese banks. I’m thinking of getting a post office account instead – they’ll the biggest financial institution in Japan and offer slightly faster service.
So goes my day of rest and relaxation.
September 6th, 2006 at 16:36
That sounds stupid, compared to over here, where any Money Mart will take whatever scrap of paper and give you money (minus their 20% chunk, or whatever they charge.) Maybe that’s why the Japanese economy is in the tank. It’s actually still in recession that started in the 90s, but didn’t hit until now because everything is 2 months behind thanks to the banks.
September 7th, 2006 at 05:58
There are many places like Money Mart that offer express loans. Recently one place was shut down for several days for violating financial laws. From what I remember they did not explicity show you how much interest you were paying and they may have charged over the legal limit of 25%. It’s good to see corporate loan sharking is still alive and kicking.
September 7th, 2006 at 11:42
As if 25% interest wasn’t loan sharking already… and I thought my credit card’s 19% interest was insane.
September 7th, 2006 at 14:28
Shit! And I thought getting a loan here in Mexico was bad…that’s just insane!