But, Sofbank is not managing their situation very well. Among Japanese & Foreign residents I’ve heard many compaints about their pricing models & restrictions.

Now this is exactly my thinking, why the hell do they refuse me? I want to know! If it’s my relative lack of time in Japan then fine, I have a reason. But I don’t know, I have a job, credit cards, gaijin card, visa. I applied using health insurance and government documents which were fine but still a big no to the 24 month plan. I cannot justify $800 for a phone, it’s crazy. It’s also not only the iphone, I got the same treatment for the xseries phones (my backup choice was an n95).

It’s bonkers. I’m not sure if it’s racism(this happens to Japanese customers to) but it’s certainly no way to treat customers!

Here’s an idea; Why not pay an upfront, discounted cost of 32,000 yen? That’s about what we pay after the two years of discounts (which I severely doubt the iphone will last through!!)

I hope your reading this softbank, you’ve pissed alot of people with this and people will surely start voting with their wallets soon.

ps Why don’t any of the other carriers sell a half decent nokia?

And of course I was pissed. I’ve got 25 months on my visa, but they require 27 for a 24-month contract. She explained the math to me: iPhone payments don’t start until the 3rd month. Thus, 27 months are required to ensure full compliance.

What I don’t get though is that they will turn down someone who has been here for 5 years, or someone who’s been here for 10 years, or someon who has a Japanese spouse and children, just because they don’t have 27 months left on their visa. (And they have private health care and don’t drive.)

BUT they’ll hand one over in a nanosecond to some fresh uni grad who’s just gotten off the plane to do the “experience Japan” thing while they teach English for a year. And have a 95% chance of booking off in the next 12 months or less. All because they just got their 3-year visa yesterday.

AND in the end, everyone actually ends up paying the same for the bloody thing: 34,560 yen:

IF you pay 80,640 up front and they take 1,920 off your bill every month. If you’re one of the “lucky ones” to qualify for the installment plan, they add 1,440 to your bill. They do this for 24 months, and in the end both have paid the same. If you quit the installment plan they charge you “remaining months x 3,360″. If you quit early after up front payment you (naturally) don’t pay anything. It just sucks coughing up 80,640 yen at once for a stupid (albeit awesome) mobile phone.

Give me the bloody phone for 34,560 and screw the “reduce my bill” or “add to my bill” crap. You’d think Softbank would be happy to be taking customers away from the competition. Hell, in Canada phone companies GIVE us INCENTIVES for switching companies.

Everyone should call Softbank and demand a reason for being refused the 24 month plan that they are applying for.

If a business is open to the public and if a customer is refused business, then a reason for refusal needs to be stated. Any company that refuses business to customers with and refuses for give a reason for refusal of business is discriminating against customers, because they are choosing to do business with some and choosing not to do business with others with no reason given. I checked the books and this is actually illegal in Japan. Softbank is engaging in illegal activity. To sue a company in Japan actually accomplishes very little, because the legal system is backwards. However, anyone refused a plan with Softbank and denied a reason for it has a case in court.

If enough of us call Softbank complaining, and if each of us makes an attempt to contact the media about it. This will hurt the company and bring them down. It is quite obvious that they are discriminating which customers they do business with on a basis that they refuse to disclose and in actuality as we all know, it is racism.

I want to know the reason why I was refused the 24 month plan even though I had all the proper documents. They won’t tell me the reason. This indicates to me that the method in which they use to evaluate customers they do business with is an illegal and secret one. What kind of business will not tell you the reason that they refuse business to you? A business with terrible customer service. This needs to be brought to the medias attention that Softbank refuses customers without giving reasons.

The reasons somebody is rejected, they say, might be that CIC which reviews his records on payment might have judged he was not entitled to the easy payment plan or he was behind his due for the cellphone etc.
(Note that there are other foreigners who were accepted)

They say;
(1)If you want to know the specific reason for the rejection, you need to call the customer center while you are at the shop applying for the easy payment plan.
(2)If you have any doubt, or you want to complain of the alleged racism , you should call the customer center.

Before you jump to the conclusion, it might be a good idea to investigate carefully. Playing the race card is okay but let’s use it carefully and use common sense wisely.

A business entity has the right to set restrictions in order to avoid potential loss. This is sound business. Offering it everybody including those who are not credit worthy can result in potential loss which will eventually be passed on to the honest paying customers.

So instead of pointing fingers at the company, maybe you should start pointing at the finger of those who skipped town.

can’t say I have first hand experience with 3G but I can vouch for the fact having YouTube on the run was already great over EDGE. the whole nature of what’s possible was more exciting than the speed – I really didn’t think letting it buffer was really that bad…patience!

Do people wonder why company has such restrictions? Maybe because due to their PAST experience, they had MANY foreigners skipped out on arrears. Just because you have no intentions of do so, maybe your colleagues/friends does.

I’ve called the Soft Bank now, and it confirmed that you don’t need to show Alien Card and passport if you bring Japanese Driver’s license or insurance certificate plus required documents.
I recommended Soft Bank to ask foreigners if they have other IDs, she complied. And I asked if the above procedure（＊) is right, she confirmed it.

Please make sure you translate the Japanese correctly if you are going to use it as the main talking point in your article. The website says 「外国人登録証明書＋外国パスポート」にてお申込される場合、以下項目をご注意ください。 Which basically says IF you are going to apply using a foreign registration card and passport then please be careful about the points listed below (then it lists the 90 day, 15 month, 27 month stuff)

It does NOT say “Bring your Gaikokujin Torokusho (Alien Card) + Passport. It seems they now require the passport too.” as you have written in your post. In fact there is nothing that says you NEED to apply using a foreign registration card or passport – the site actually provides a nice list of other documents you can use when applying for the contract.

People who claim that NO foreigners that they know have every pulled a runner or that Japanese nationals are just as likely to pull a runner as a foreign resident are either lying or are incredibly naive. It is a problem that a lot of the cellphone companies here have and it should surprise no one that they have taken steps to try to stop the problem. There is a very clear list – in English – about what you need to get a new contract at Softbank – and it mirrors what is listed in the English site except for the part about needing more than 27 months on your Foreign Registration Card – IF you apply with a foreign registration card and passport – a pain but it is understandable for them to want to check that you are going to be in the country for all of two year contract when they are essentially letting you walk out the store with $800 of their merchandise without paying for it (but really people – if you have less than 27 months on your foreign registration card then why would you choose that option??? Bring in some other pieces of identification)

Also, just because some of the people working at the softbank shops have no idea what they are doing (surprise surprise – workers at a cellphone retail store that probably only get minimum wage are not rocket scientists) there is no reason to claim that the whole company is racist – that is just ridiculous logic.

If Softbank really has these policies on their website, they should inform their staff so that we people are told right away they will be rejected, not after waiting 4 and a half hours. What they did may not be illegal, but it is unfair and discriminatory, and I will never buy a phone from Softbank, Next day, I went and got a new Docomo phone and am really happy with it. Softbank was totally unprepared to sell the I-phone and their staff undertrained. The manager even told me I might get approved at a different store with a different person. What is that?

In Japan, according to the Soft Bank web site, if you have driver’s license, whether you are Japanese or foreigner, you don’t need a credit card.
Is French company racist because it requires a credit card in addition to ID? and foreigners are less likely to have a credit card?
Note Japanese without driver’s license nor national insurance certificate might complain that soft bank is discriminating against Japanese because foreigners without driver’s license and insurance certificate still have a chance to get iphone.

After actually reading the Soft Bank Web site, I am not really sure whether soft bank is a racist, or some comments here reflect their Japanophobia.

No, they have the same rules for other phones too.

We just changed to softbank two weeks ago, tried four different shops until we found one which was helpfull enough to tell us about the third option below:

Basically there were three options:

1. Pay the phone’s price, get the “bonus” on phone bills for two years.
2. Pay double monthly rates, get the bonus for the shorter time – in this way your payment will be over in one year or so, so no need for longer visas.
3. Forget their super bargain plan (or what was it called), pay for the phone, and afterwards you’ll pay only for your bills (no monthly fee for the phone, no “bonus” reduced from your bill).

The third option was way more cheaper even when we compared to the normal two-year contract thing.

If you really want an Iphone and are a resident with attachements then get your partner to get it for you under thier name or buy it outright.

RE my mates, it happens. Maybe i had dodgy ones, i never did a runner, but it does happen. All too often and sofbank knows this.

It’s not about being australian at all. There is some misreading going on. My point was that in Australia unless you have apermanent visa, you can’t get a phone on contract, like JAPAN. it may be easier in Australia to get a permanenet visa, but hey thats the case.

I’m sticking to my original point. THIS IS A NON ISSUE. It’s not discrimination and it makes perfect sense. Stop making a mountain out of a molehill. If you really want a phone this badly, then buy it out right.

In Europe, if your credit rating is poor, you can’t buy this toy. Since Japan doesn’t do credit ratings, how do you suggest they should seel this? I haven’t seen a single comment that seems to indicate that They Are Racist.

some have said that they were able to bypass these rules by using a Japanese drivers’ license/health insurance ID

It is no wonder that people can “bypass these rule” because the rute says so.

共通 申込に際しては、運転免許証等の本人確認書類が必要となります。
あらかじめご確認ください。

Everyone needs ID
Types of ID

http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/iphone/purchase/identify.html
A driver’s license
B Japanese passport
C Health Insurance card ＋　receipt from public service etc
D Health Insurance card ＋　credit card
E Health Insurance care ＋　student ID
F…..
G Alien Card + Passport

However there are other foreigners in this thread who were able to get an iPhone from Softbank without these restrictions, and Softbank said that they would also accept a driver’s license or health insurance license. Like Ken Y-N said, these restrictions seem to only be for new customers (but even then it seems to differ, from what Mark said).

Apart from the obvious, being a spouse visa (and him having a child), only 3 months ago he got a new 24-month contract with Softbank. They obviously had no problem with it back then!

If you register with a credit card, your bill will get paid one way or the other. And if someone leaves before the two year contract, just charge them for the remaining cost of the phone and be done with it. Put it in the contract and have them sign it.

And sorry you must be hanging with the wrong ‘mates’ if they are the kind of people to bail on their phone bills. None of my pals would do this, even the Aussies.

They gonna do the same thing for people with SOFA visas? Or people married to Japanese spouses without long-term visas? Absolute bullshit.

Imagine if they tried to pull something similar to foreigners in the US, Canada or Europe. Barbaric.

My guess is that smaller stores (as indicated above) will give you less BS.

And if anyone gives you BS, call Apple. They would be horrified at this kind of treatment.

Like Mark (above), I was given a phone for \34,560 – a figure that leads me to believe some form of price gouging is going on.

However, my monthly rate is lower at just \6,300 per month.
I also ensured that there would be ZERO yen charged on top of this price by having them clarify three times, just how much I can use the phone before extra charges apply. Can’t say it’s a great deal, but better than the \14,000 AU has been charging me every month, despite having a \3,700/month tariff with them.

It might be just as well to wait six months when it emerges that this new iPhone is not taking off as much as expected, and/or, someone gets bored with it and you can find one in the recycle store for near new price, and then just buy an unlock for it, using your SIM card from another carrier.

Softbank sucks at the best of times, and I’m not happy that they and they alone got the deal to provide this phone to the public.
KDDI would be a much better deal and service. I hate Softbank with a passion.

Anyway, the phone is cool and it’s going to be on the battery charger pretty much constantly for the next couple of days until the novelty wears off and I actually put the damn thing down!!

If you want to see what the iPhone 3G is capable of, check this site out: http://www.inyouriphone.com

In the meantime, I’ll be hanging onto my GZOne phone for quite some time yet!

My deal was, around 1 man yen per month including a reduced 1440 yen per month charge for the actual phone on top of the 8500 yen or so actual tariff. Obviously over 24 months. This, if you work it out, is the reduced 36000-odd yen price for the phone.

However, I then this afternoon went to a store in Matsumoto and was told I would need 20 months left on my visa if I were to buy one there. So the truth is, it depends entirely on the store selling them. A crazy situation!

But I obviously found a ‘good’ store, and they were very helpful. I went there at 0745 this morning, and by the time the store opened at 10 there were only 7 people waiting anyway – waaaaaaaay less than the amount of iPhones they actually received (in excess of 20).

Oh, and I love it by the way

As pointed out by others, the restrictions are for new gaijin customers only.

There’s also an interesting article on CNet about the other red flags in the contract:

http://japan.cnet.com/mobile/story/0,3800078151,20377047,00.htm

You have to change email addresses; all emails get auto-purged after 30 days, so they expect you to FW to a PC/Mac adress; if you’re on White or Gold plan MAIL IS NOT FREE; you have to activate yourself at home;etc, etc.

There is no way I will ever step inside that store again.

People talk about the Japanese having great customer service. It was none existent in that store.

The economy is stagnating in part because people don’t spend their money in Japan. Whole lot of saving going on!

http://www.japaninc.com/jin176
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?fl20020829zg.htm

I don’t think this is any longer their policy, and it might not have even lasted long. Here’s their new policy stuff, in English:

http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/support/procedure/document/verifying/

I had exactly this problem a couple of months back, I’ve been a Vodafone, Sofbank user for over 6 years and never missed a payment. I’ve had to pay a phone bill of over 70, 000 yen (because I thought that using global roaming was a good idea) and was treated like a common criminal at the Sofbank store in Omotesando. The reason for discriminating against me was “because Chinese buy phones and leave the country”.

It seems you can also use your Japanese driving licence as proof, it doesnt HAVE to be your passport.

Im mailing them to check anyway though.