08.01.08

More Scuffles with the Bank, Part 3: Assets still Frozen, Hope on the Horizon

Posted in Chinese Bank Rants at 3:21 pm by Benjamin Ross

For those of you who are regulars to this blog, you probably know I have an ongoing feud with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). Without rehashing the entire story (you can read part 1 and part 2 here), basically through a combination of faulty machinery, silly regulations, and a slice of human error, I essentially had my assets frozen. Because my ATM password had allegedly been entered incorrectly three times, and therefore my account was frozen, and I could not make withdrawals. Since my account was originally opened in Fujian, I was told there was nothing the ICBC in Beijing could do. I would have to return to Fujian to settle the matter. Fortunately, a return trip to Fujian was part of my China summer itinerary.

This past Sunday I left Wenzhou (where I had been for 5 days visiting friends), and headed for Fuqing, the small town an hour outside Fuzhou in which I lived my first year in China (and where I had opened my ICBC account). The ICBC in Beijing had told me that I only needed to return “a Fujian branch” of ICBC to reset my password. Just to be on the safe side, I decided it would be best to go to the actual city where my account was opened.

My arch nemesis, the Industrial and Commerical Bank of China, always seems to have the upper hand when it comes to making my personal financial affairs in China a living nightmare.

On my first day in Fuqing, I was met by a typhoon. Typhoons are common in Fujian in the summer, and since Fuqing sits just a few miles from the ocean, it gets hit hard. Winds howl, the rain persists for days on end, and often billboards are blown off their sign posts. Most residents just stay home and wait it out. I made it to ICBC at 2:30 in the afternoon, only to be told they were closing early because of the typhoon, and that I would have to return the following day.

So the next day I woke bright and early, and arrived at ICBC at 9:30 am. Upon talking the clerk, I realized that my extra precautions had been well-thought out.

“Yes, in order to reset your password you do have to be in Fuqing. This can not be done in Beijing or even Fuzhou,” he told me. “However, you can not do it at this branch. You must go to the exact same branch where you opened your account.”

The clerk looked up my account on the computer, and then hand wrote the address of the downtown branch where I would need to go. (Fuqing is a tiny city and the whole thing can be covered on foot in a matter of hours, yet like most small Chinese towns, ICBC branches number in the double digits).

I flagged down a cab, and headed over to the downtown area and await my date with Chinese banking destiny. When I arrived at ICBC, I explained my situation to the clerk behind the teller window, and told her I had been sent there by the other branch. “You need to talk to that man over there,” she said, pointing to a man seated at a desk in the lobby. “He’s the manager. He can help you.”

I walked across the lobby and sat down in the chair facing the manager’s desk. He had been chatting with a group of redundant security guards, and turned around to face me.

“How can I help you?”

“Ok, here’s my situation. I arrived in Beijing, and the first thing I did was to go to an ICBC ATM at the airport to withdraw money. I put my card in the first machine. It spit it out saying that the ATM was out of service. Then I tried another ATM, and had the same result. Finally, I found a third ATM, entered my password and mistyped a character. I tried to withdraw again, and the machine told me I had exceeded three incorrect logins, and I could no longer make a withdrawal. I am currently staying in Beijing, so I went to a Beijing ICBC branch and explained my situation to them. They said I would need to reset my password, and this could only be done in Fujian, so here I am.”

“I see,” he said. “Well, the clerk in Beijing was right. It is an ICBC regulation that resetting one’s password must be done at the branch where they opened their account…So let’s get you taken care of. All you need to do is fill out these forms…”

“check”

“make a copy of your passport…”

“got it right here”

“and come back in seven days to come back and change your password.”

“Seven days? I’ll be back in Beijing by then!”

“Well then you will just have to do it next time you come back to Fuqing and stay for seven days.”

“I live in Chicago,” I exclaimed to him, still keeping my composure and polite form, “It’s not like I book regular seven day stays in Fuqing whenever I please. I really have no idea when the next time I will be in Fuqing will be, or if I will ever stay a full seven days. I already came all the way from Beijing, and I just want to get my money.”

“Yeah, I know. I really want to help you, and the system is quite inefficient, but there is nothing we can do. Regulations are regulations.” He sat there pondering. I could see he was honestly trying to figure out a way to get me out of my predicament.

“There is one thing,” he shot up, “You can find a local person in Fuqing, put in a password change request, and then sign your account over to them. In seven days they can come back, change your password, withdraw your money, and send it to you.”

It was a round-about, yet brilliant idea, and I knew exactly who I could trust to help me with the situation. I called my old colleague from my former university, Da Sen, who incidentally was also the first person I ever met in China. Da Sen had been the representative from the school who had picked me up at the airport when I first arrived. He was also the teacher assigned to be my helper, and thus had assisted me with tasks such as opening a bank account, getting a haircut, locating deodorant, and all the other daily troubles China newbies need assistance with.

The typhoon was raging full speed by this time, and I felt a little uneasy asking Da Sen to come out in such horrible weather to be my assistant in wading through bureaucracy, but there was no other alternative. I flagged down a taxi, headed over to the university, picked up Da Sen, and the two of us returned to ICBC.

Armed with my forms, my passport, and now a local to whom I could sign over my account, I strolled back into ICBC confident that once and for all the matter would be resolved. A young girl, no older than twenty was seated behind the teller window. Da Sen and I approached the window, and I explained my situation to her.

“I need to reset my password, but I will not be in Fuqing for 7 days. I want to sign my account over to my friend so that he can withdraw the money, and then send it to me. Here are all the forms, my passport, and his ID card.” Before I could slip the documents under the teller window, the young girl retorted,

“That is impossible.”

“What do you mean? All I want to do is sign my account over to him so that he can change my password. I have both of our ID’s and all the forms right here.”

“You can’t do that.” she turned to the other tellers sitting behind the windows on both sides of her.

“No, that is impossible. We can not do that for you,” one of them replied in agreement while the other shook her head.

My Chinese bank vocabulary is pretty solid, but even still, I could normally attribute a situation like this to a possible misinterpretation on my part. That would hold water had it not been for the fact that Da Sen, who is Chinese, had also spoken with the manager on the phone before he came to the bank, and clearly understood his instructions about signing my account over to him. By now I was getting angry, and this was being reflected in my tone of voice.

“The manager who was sitting at the desk over there specifically told me I could do it. he was sitting right there, and he specifically told me I could sign my account over to a friend.”

The manager had apparently gone to lunch and was now nowhere to be seen. I pointed over to the desk where he had been sitting, hoping the teller would know who I was referring to.

“Oh him?…He’s not really the manager,” she said.

“Yes he is, he said he was the 经理. His button said 经理.”*

“He’s just the 经理of the lobby. He doesn’t have any authority. What he said doesn’t matter. I am afraid you are just going to have to come back in seven days to reset your password.”

“Listen, I came all the way from Beijing, and was specifically told I could sign my account over to my friend. I have already visited two separate branches, was told to leave and come back with a Chinese friend, got my friend, brought him back here through the typhoon, and have already wasted hours of my time based on instructions I was given by your bank. I am not leaving without this matter being resolved.”

The three teller women conferred with one another, and after about ten minutes of deliberation, including some argumentative but civil words from Da Sen, they relented.

“Ok, you can sign the account over to him. But you are going to need to fill out those forms all over again, and I will need to make copies of both of your IDs.”

As Da Sen and I labored through the paperwork, the girl took our IDs and made copies. When she emerged, she and the other employees huddled around the copies, once again. After several minutes, she returned to the teller window.

“I am sorry, but the person on this passport is not the same person as the one who holds this account.”

“That’s impossible!” I shouted back, using the same lingo I have so often heard from bank employees.**

“Look here. The owner of this account is ‘Benjamin Ross,’ but this passport is for ‘Benjamin David Ross.’”

From this point, Da Sen, also growing increasingly frustrated, took over. “Look, in the United States most people have a middle name. However, they rarely use it. Usually they just write their first and last name. So it’s really just the same.”

“But the name on the passport must match the name on the bank account,” the girl sternly replied.

“That’s not our fault!” Da Sen argued back. “I was with him when we opened the account. We presented you with his passport. If the bank did not write it the same as it is on the passport, then that is the bank’s fault, not ours.”

“That does not matter. We still need proof that this is the same person as the one on the bank account.”

This was the point where my anger began morphing into pure amusement. Fuqing has few, if any, foreign residents. It is quite likely that I am probably the only American who has ever opened an ICBC account in Fuqing, let alone the only American with the name of “Benjamin Ross” to have opened on. I had my bank card with me, as well as a passport with a picture of a guy who looked strikingly similar to the one standing in front of the teller window. Even a chimpanzee with Alzheimer’s could have ascertained I was the rightful owner of the account.

After conferring with her colleagues, the girl turned to us once again. “We will need to send your documentation over to the main provincial ICBC office in Fuzhou. They will research the matter and determine whether or not there is enough proof that you are the proper owner of the bank account. Come back after three o’clock and we will tell you the result.”

I already had afternoon plans to hang out with my barbershop buddies in Fuzhou and would have to leave Fuqing around lunch time. There was no chance I could be back at the bank at three.

“What if they determine there is not enough proof?” I asked.

“Then you will need to fill out all the paperwork to do a proper name change.”

“Can I just do all the paperwork now, just in case it doesn’t work out? Then I won’t have to make a second trip to Fuqing.”

“No, you can not. We will need to research it first, and then you can come back after three, and fill out the paperwork then.”

Confused, frustrated, angry, dejected, and with feelings bordering on violence and rage, I left the bank. Never before in my life have I ever had the urge to barge into a public venue, strapped with a vest of dynamite. Now, at least I knew that if it ever came to that, I would know exactly where to go. I made my way to the bus station where I boarded the bus to Fuzhou, wondering whether I would ever see my money again.

Around four o’clock, I received a phone call from Da Sen.

“The bank manager called me, and told me that they found there was not significant proof to show the bank account was yours. You are going to need to go back to Fuqing to fill out a ‘name change’ form, and then the do the ‘password reset’ forms all over again. There is no other way to get your money.”

So the following day I took the bus back to Fuqing, and met Da Sen back at the bank. We asked to speak with the manager who had originally contacted him, and when she came out from the back, I spoke.

“Hello, I am that foreigner in question who needs proof that the account is his.”

“Oh yes, I remember. You are going to need to go to the other branch first, and submit the name change form. They are in charge of name changes on accounts. Then bring the name change form back to this branch and we will submit the password change.”

So Da Sen and I took his electric bike over to the ICBC branch which was in charge of name changes. We filled out several forms on which I carefully printed my name as ‘Benjamin David Ross,” and returned to the original branch. After another ten minutes of forms, we were done. Compared with the previous day, going from bank to bank to bank and filling out a mountain of paperwork seemed like a relatively seamless trip to ICBC. The manager assured me that in seven days Da Sen will be able to return to the bank, fill out more paperwork, change my password, withdraw my money, and send it to me in Beijing…I’m giving it a 50/50 chance everything works out.

* (jing1 li3, manager)
**The actual phrase I used was 不可能 (bu4 ke3 neng2), which literally means “impossible.”

concluded in More Scuffles with the Bank Part 4:  My ‘Happy Ending’

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