Drat! Sony Bank bounced funds wired from Firstrade

[ChapInTokyo]

I had been thinking Sony Bank was a pretty reliable replacement for Prestia but it seems that was wishful thinking.

I’d wired some USD funds from my Firstrade account last week to my Sony Bank account and was waiting for it to land in the foreign currency account…the same way I had been able to do the previous month.

So when I suddenly got this email from Sony telling me that they had decided that the remittance did not clear their internal regulations and had been returned to the sending account, I was surprised to say the least. I called customer service to try to try to sort it out and even asked to speak with the anti money laundering task force or whatever department that decided to send the remittance back but the nice lady at customer service could really not explain the reason for what had happened except to say that the relevant department had made their decision and there was no two ways about it.

What a customer service disaster! The amount of the remittance is too big to send at reasonable cost via Wise, so I’m now split between going back to Prestia or perhaps giving Shinsei Bank a try. Anyone have any experience of receiving wired funds via Shinsei?

Anyway people, don’t send money from Firstrade to Sony Bank. I mean, I can’t imagine why they bounced my wire from last week while they processed my wire from a month before. Maybe I caught them on a bad day or something…

[Deep Blue]

That really is shit customer service from Sony. I had thought about opening an account there, glad I passed now.

If they receive a large remittance then they should contact the account holder and ask for documents relating to the provenance. Then they can decide what to do based on their assessment of the risk the money comes from an illegal source.

Just rejecting it without consultation or right of appeal is simply rubbish.

[captainspoke]

That really is shit customer service from Sony. I had thought about opening an account there, glad I passed now.

If they receive a large remittance then they should contact the account holder and ask for documents relating to the provenance. Then they can decide what to do based on their assessment of the risk the money comes from an illegal source.

Just rejecting it without consultation or right of appeal is simply rubbish.

100% agree.

[RetireJapan]

Anyone have any experience of receiving wired funds via Shinsei?

In the past I have sent reasonable amounts of money (up to 10 million yen) to Shinsei with no problem. But that was a while ago and they might have gotten worse.

[TokyoWart]

I am finding that banks here are more conservative than elsewhere and that they have also become more quick to reject transactions now than they were a few years ago. (My reference point is in comparison to pre-pandemic since I had fewer needs to use money overseas during the shutdown.) On my last business trip to the US my Japan-based corporate credit card rejected the transaction when I tried to check-in and when I finally reached customer service (2 days later because they don't even operate outside Japan business hours) they said it was an automatic rejection because I was using the card overseas. That had never happened to me before for the corporate card (it happens regularly now with my personal Rakuten cards) and was difficult to understand given that the card is supposed to be used on business trips and we have affiliates around the world. A Japanese colleague who was attending the same meeting with me did not have that problem with her corporate card which makes me wonder if I was being flagged as higher risk as a foreigner.

[ChapInTokyo]

I am finding that banks here are more conservative than elsewhere and that they have also become more quick to reject transactions now than they were a few years ago. (My reference point is in comparison to pre-pandemic since I had fewer needs to use money overseas during the shutdown.) On my last business trip to the US my Japan-based corporate credit card rejected the transaction when I tried to check-in and when I finally reached customer service (2 days later because they don't even operate outside Japan business hours) they said it was an automatic rejection because I was using the card overseas. That had never happened to me before for the corporate card (it happens regularly now with my personal Rakuten cards) and was difficult to understand given that the card is supposed to be used on business trips and we have affiliates around the world. A Japanese colleague who was attending the same meeting with me did not have that problem with her corporate card which makes me wonder if I was being flagged as higher risk as a foreigner.

I've noticed that my SMBC Trust Club card (formerly Citicard) refusing to approve some transactions with overseas purchases especially when the vendor is in some supposedly suspicious places like Brazil. I can understand that the card company is trying to protect me but it’s quite annoying because there is no indication that the transaction is being pro-actively blocked rather than something going awry with the authentication process…

It’s certainly become a system more prone to user frustration than I remember!

[captainspoke]

I have a shinsei acct, almost always used it to send money, and have only rec'd funds a few times, 15 if not 20rys ago.

As a retiree I thought that I'd simply wire funds in when that time came, but maybe I should try a test transfer--and I wonder if calling ahead to notify them 2-3 days in advance would help.

Luckily that broker has a good card, so cash advances could be an alternative to wiring money in to a bank here.

[beanhead]

Did Sony Bank not contact you to ask you to explain where the funds came from?
I always get an email from them if I receive money from overseas. It comes in Japanese and points you to a self-declaration survey thing.

[ChapInTokyo]

I have a shinsei acct, almost always used it to send money, and have only rec'd funds a few times, 15 if not 20rys ago.

As a retiree I thought that I'd simply wire funds in when that time came, but maybe I should try a test transfer--and I wonder if calling ahead to notify them 2-3 days in advance would help.

Luckily that broker has a good card, so cash advances could be an alternative to wiring money in to a bank here.

I agree about simply getting cash advances using the Firstrade VISA debit card would work pretty well for daily expenses but this year I’m bringing a whole chunk of my invested dollars back to Japan to reinvest mostly in Japanese mutual funds. I might give Shinsei a try since their exchange rate is pretty competitive whereas Prestia isn’t even in the running…

[ChapInTokyo]

Did Sony Bank not contact you to ask you to explain where the funds came from?
I always get an email from them if I receive money from overseas. It comes in Japanese and points you to a self-declaration survey thing.

The first time I wired from Firstrade to Sony they did. And I provided everything from kakuteishinkoku, Firstrade statement of sale, and so on. This time there was only an email asking me to go to the Sony Bank site and click the 受取り手続き button which I did and filled in a couple of questionnaire fields asking what the money was for etc. No submission of documents substantiating source of funds or anything this time around so I mistakenly thought ah they see it’s from the same clearing agent and are waving me through without asking for the documents. BIG MISTAKE! The nice lady in Customer Support told me that the anti money laundering department (which I’m sure must be full of obligatory quota of Police Force OBs) apparently made the decision to bounce the remittance based on the sending organization (ie. Apex Clearing, which is Firstrade’s clearing agent). This sounds very unlikely to me but hey what do I, just a poor retail customer, know?