International banking options (United Kingdom to Japan)

[Doddy]

I have just set up an account with Amazon JP to order a technical manual, only to find the transaction blocked by my bank. It took a 56-minute call to get the account unblocked, but in the meantime Halifax Building Society cancelled the transaction.

 

Whilst on the phone, I ordered another item (more expensive) to which I am going to claim the difference from Halifax.

 

Question is: Since Amazon JP does not support PayPal, what other banking companies would provide a reliable banking transaction process when ordering models from Japan?

 

Many thanks

 

Robert

Edited April 30, 2023 by disturbman
Bolden & All caps

[Tony Galiani]

I have used Wise for a large transaction - buying a bass in Japan and having it shipped to the US.  Pretty sure they handle UK transactions as I think they are based there.

Cheers,

Tony

[disturbman]

Wise as you can order a Visa to pay internationally. Just need to move money on your Wise account before paying.

[cteno4]

might look at getting an Amazon branded credit card. it’s worked fine with my us amazon branded credit card (chase bank) with orders to amazon.jp, .uk, .de, .nl and a few others for me. Never triggered visa foreign tractions alert at all with the amazons. You don’t get the extra amazon purchase credit card rewards on your foreign Amazon purchases (at least with the us card) but it just gives you rewards like a general purchase.

 

amazon has also let me just use my Amazon.com login on all the country branded amazon sites with no extra setup.

 

jeff

[Guest]

Why go that far? Like you, I use same Amazon account and card in 3 countries, never an issue.  I even have 3 prime

memberships, useful when visiting those countries (or using VPN for prime video).

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by Bob Martin

[Doddy]

Bob,

 

What bank do you use? And what Amazon country account?

 

These details are important as my original post clearly stated that I cannot do what you are proposing as my bank keeps blocking out international transactions. I was, and still are, registered with Amazon UK, but the UK site does not list items that I can find on Amazon JP, hence the requirement to register both.

 

 

[chadbag]

I've never had problems with any of my (US based) Chase (Amazon, Freedom, Sapphire), Capital One, add a couple other cards at Amazon JP  and Amazon DE.  I think you just got unlucky with your bank and most other banks would probably not have issues?  Not sure how the UK banks for international credit card usage -- especially online.

 

I did have an issue a couple times with a transaction not going through with Modellbahnshop-Lippe.  The bank claimed they didn't see the transaction so maybe their (MSL) their processor screwed up.  Other purchases from MSL were fine and the one or two that didn't or wouldn't go through I covered with PayPal (I know Amazon doesn't do that as you said).

 

I too use Amazon Prime in Japan but usually cancel when I leave since we're only there every other year.  I have a long term Prime account in the US and the US Amazon credit card is a great deal if you are a primer member and shop a lot on Amazon.  (Doesn't help OP of course)

 

[Wolf]

Every credit card regardless of issuing bank should work, I am wondering why Halifax issued CCs are not working. Did you ask them why they block japanese transactions? Cant see why its just amazon, Sounds more like some weird localised fraud prevention thingie.

[Doddy]

1 hour ago, Wolf said:

Every credit card regardless of issuing bank should work, I am wondering why Halifax issued CCs are not working. Did you ask them why they block japanese transactions? Cant see why its just amazon, Sounds more like some weird localised fraud prevention thingie.

 

You are in Germany, so this is not yet an issue for you (until the European Union implements the same legal requirement) But here in the United Kingdom, the Government have mandated that all UK Banks verify their customer's new international payees in order to eliminate money laundering, in my case my bank sent me a text to verify who I am and said I'd get another to verify the payment, which they did not (again, for the third time) and immediately cancelled the payment and blocked my card,

 

Only after I had spent an hour on the phone being verified and the block unblocked. They told me to order the item again in 10 minutes, only to find that the item was out-of-stock and could not be ordered again. Thus, more expense as in addition to the costs of the phone call and because the item was the cheapest listed, I had to pay more for a replacement whilst the Bank's operator checked the transaction went through.

 

Now, it is bad enough doing that with invoices written in English, but relying on a machine translation from Japan does not work when the invoice is both in Japanese and formatted as .gif or .jpeg file as machine translators like Bing, Google and DeepL do not read language from pictures. Yes, I admit I should learn to read and write in Japanese.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Doddy

[Doddy]

17 hours ago, cteno4 said:

might look at getting an Amazon branded credit card. it’s worked fine with my us amazon branded credit card (chase bank) with orders to amazon.jp, .uk, .de, .nl and a few others for me. Never triggered visa foreign tractions alert at all with the amazons. You don’t get the extra amazon purchase credit card rewards on your foreign Amazon purchases (at least with the us card) but it just gives you rewards like a general purchase.

 

amazon has also let me just use my Amazon.com login on all the country branded amazon sites with no extra setup.

 

jeff

 

Well, at least I tried your idea. Amazon UK however have other ideas!

 

[cteno4]

Bummer looks like amazon is changing banks right now for the amazon.uk credit card. I would expect they would get this settled fast and a new bank/card out.

 

the us card thru chase bank has worked with every Amazon I’ve tried so far no hitches, no alarms.

 

jeff
 

 

[Wolf]

What about a Wise or any other prepaid cards? Tried these?

[disturbman]

Yeah, just get a Wise card.

[Doddy]

Don't you just love it - I had this from Amazon JP this morning

 

Thank you for using Amazon.

We have recently discovered that your account may have been illegally accessed. Therefore, we have taken the following measures to protect your information.

-- Signed out of the compromised browser.

-- De-registered the high-risk devices.

-- Disabled all changes made by unauthorised access.

-- We have cancelled orders prior to dispatch where possible.

-- Invalidated account passwords. You can no longer use the same password as before on your account.

To regain access to your account, please call customer service.

[chadbag]

8 hours ago, Doddy said:

Don't you just love it - I had this from Amazon JP this morning

 

Thank you for using Amazon.

We have recently discovered that your account may have been illegally accessed. Therefore, we have taken the following measures to protect your information.

-- Signed out of the compromised browser.

-- De-registered the high-risk devices.

-- Disabled all changes made by unauthorised access.

-- We have cancelled orders prior to dispatch where possible.

-- Invalidated account passwords. You can no longer use the same password as before on your account.

To regain access to your account, please call customer service.

 

I assume when you say "had this from Amazon JP this morning" you mean by email.

Have you verified it os a real email from Amazon JP and not a phishing or otherwise fake email?

 

 

[Doddy]

31 minutes ago, chadbag said:

 

I assume when you say "had this from Amazon JP this morning" you mean by email.

Have you verified it os a real email from Amazon JP and not a phishing or otherwise fake email?

 

 

 

Is this a serious question?

[chadbag]

1 minute ago, Doddy said:

 

Is this a serious question?

 

No, I go around asking non serious questions for the fun of it.  

Of course it is a serious question.

I get a lot of fake email labeled Amazon.co.jp in my email account.   The way you described it is often the way these phishing/fake emails are worded.

 

[cteno4]

Yes beware, like Chad I get a lot of amazon.command amazon.jp phishes just like yours and can look perfect except form link and/or phone numbers. If you do call amazon cs go thru the website process directly with amazon.co.uk to have them call you.

 

jeff

[Doddy]

It was not a phishing scam. It was legit. In fact I have spent the whole day interviewing banks about their International Fraud Policies and found out that the UK government have made it a legal requirement for Banks to verify all overseas transactions and determine a course of action.

 

As it turns out I have decided to change bank as Halifax caused too many issues, and will follow up with a Wise account for Japanese purchases.

 

After reading your email, an email dropped into my inbox from Amazon Japan from Yue, in an extremely polite, apologetic, and professional manner re-instating my account and arranging for my original order to be fulfilled.

 

Thank you for all your responses.

[Doddy]

52 minutes ago, chadbag said:

 

No, I go around asking non serious questions for the fun of it.  

Of course it is a serious question.

I get a lot of fake email labeled Amazon.co.jp in my email account.   The way you described it is often the way these phishing/fake emails are worded.

 

 

Sorry chadbag, I can now see where you are coming from. I had just returned home after a long day with several banks and was more than a bit moody. My apologies.

[chadbag]

22 hours ago, Doddy said:

found out that the UK government have made it a legal requirement for Banks to verify all overseas transactions and determine a course of action.

 

Good luck with that (said parenthetically to the UK government).    The administrative load this pushes on to banks will basically kill international commerce.

[Beaver]

Never mind international commerce, paranoid banks are harming small businesses and sole traders at home by their insistence at seeing fraud behind every tree.

 

The last time I went camping, to a small one-woman run site on a hill farm, paying the £10 deposit at booking took hours because the bank was firmly convinced that this was some sort of fraud or scam transaction and kept blocking it.

 

Business and government alike over here increasingly act as if they're our parents and we the people are all oversized children who need protecting from ourselves.

[Doddy]

2 hours ago, chadbag said:

 

Good luck with that (said parenthetically to the UK government).    The administrative load this pushes on to banks will basically kill international commerce.

 

That's what I told the bank when I gave them a bill for £350 ($440) for the inconvenience they had caused me on two occasions. i don't expect that I will see any of it though.

[Kamome]

Halifax, afaik,  is still a building society rather than a bank. The difference is generally they are not listed on the stock market, similar to a credit union in the US. Fine for ISAs, mortgages or other savings accounts but really never offered the same level of services a bank does, even though they’ve started to offer similar current account options like most banks do.  I would suggest that a credit card would generally offer better buyer protection for overseas purchases anyway. Most banks won’t be helpful if you’ve paid for goods that you don’t receive or have issue with. Do some research on cards that give you good protection on overseas purchases and the exchange rates will be more favourable compared to banks too. 

[cteno4]

And no foreign exchange fees they can try to sneak in with exchange and as a transaction charge. With some cards this adds $5 or more per transaction to the cardholder.

 

jeff