On Monday, June 17, 2002, at 09:53 , Kevin Williams wrote:
> While I don't necessarily believe that charging a 30,000 yen deposit is
> the correct answer, I don't see too many people providing other
> suggestions. Should only the US military guys be hit with the deposit,
> or is this just more discrimination?
In the UK, operators establish the risk they are taking by the address
at which the applicant is resident, well, amongst other factors that is.
I wonder how Japanese credit card companies assess the risk of new
applicants. Clearly, there should be some system in place in Japan by
which risk can be assessed on a basis other than nationality.
In any event, the operators have an obligation to their shareholders and
their paying customers to minimise their exposure to fraud and that
includes subscription fraud.
If this includes taking deposits from new customers, then so be it. This
may not be a problem if there are alternative ways for a new customer to
avoid the deposit. Such an alternative could be that someone who is
acceptable to DoCoMo will vouch for them, in a similar fashion as is the
case when you rent an apartment in Japan.
But also, if DoCoMo offers a prepaid plan in the interim to establish
credit history this would be a good alternative to circumvent the
deposit. For my first GSM phone in the UK (mid 90s) I had to shell out a
total deposit of 1000 GBP (almost 200.000 yen at todays exchange rate),
250 for getting service, 250 for international calls and another 500 for
roaming service.
At that time there was no alternative, but today I could simply buy a
prepaid SIM card on any one of the UK networks and tariffs wouldn't be
all that different (not harmfully different anyway). Anywhere in Europe,
if you have insufficient credit history, then Prepaid is for you. So,
the question is, can you get a prepaid phone on DoCoMo without paying
the deposit and also can you get prepaid these days even if you are only
on a tourist visa ?
Last time I checked you needed alien registration and residency status
even for prepaid, which seems, at best a bit odd. Is that still the
case ?
Another question would be, can you get your deposit back after you have
shown that you are steadily paying your bills (ie. after 6 or 12 months
probation so to speak) ?
If such alternatives and mechanisms are in place, I can see no harm in
DoCoMo taking a deposit from new customers for which they cannot
establish any credit risk.
Having said that, it is unfortunate that the rule appears to be based on
nationality only.
> BTW, my understanding is that
> DoCoMo approached the US military here and requested they plop down the
> deposit to their troops instead of each individual person. That way,
> DoCoMo would be safe from those that skip out on paying their bills, and
> the US gov't could make sure their guys are responsible members of this
> society. Unfortunately, they said forget it. Just shows how much faith
> they put in their own people.
That's very interesting (and telling).
regards
benjamin
Received on Mon Jun 17 16:44:15 2002