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A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China

blog.lerner.co.il

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Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China

#81

Post by xster »

gcb0 wrote: post #70

Why would you ever need to use a VPN while in china accessing their owned services? That's great for china from an infosec perspective though. Now they know your VPN exit IPs, and if you re-use the pattern/pin of the phone to lock the wallet, they will know that too.

This may or may not be what the OP meant but if you trust Google Play and don't trust anything else like an APK from WeChat's website, then you won't be able to get it from the Play Store once you enter China. (Though you won't need to do this if you roam on some carriers like Google Fi or use the WiFi of some nicer hotels)

Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China

#82

Post by xster »

atr_gz wrote: post #76
pascoej wrote: post #7

Nice guide. I didn’t know it was possible without the Chinese phone number + Chinese bank account. Getting a Chinese phone number and bank account was surprisingly painless for me. You prepay around 20-30$ for a phone number at 1rmb/500mb and the account is a simple form. Then if you have a nice bank account with fee free international withdraws you can convert money without fee by going to the atm, withdrawing, then…

Your experience was very different from mine - I had to have two Chinese locals sign as guarantors just to get a prepaid China Mobile plan. My bank account took two trips of 1-2 hours each. Both times I went with a native speaker, so it wasn't a language issue. It could be because I'm in a less developed city - can I ask where you were at?

Not all China Mobile/Unicom service centers are built the same. Doing it inside the Shanghai/Beijing airport arrival areas is way easier than doing it in the city with a foreign passport.

Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China

#84

Post by reuven »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #42

(Re: The ExpressVPN ad in the middle of the article.) Personally I avoid any VPN service that uses affiliate codes to grow. It shows they don't really care about privacy. Which, sadly, applies to most commercial VPN services.

OP here.

It wasn't an ad, per se -- I really do use ExpressVPN. I love them and use them all the time, in China and when I'm at clients' offices.

Whenever I mention them, I use an affiliate link. Heck, why not? But if you want to use them without an affiliate link, that's totally OK, too.

Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China

#85

Post by reuven »

bobthepanda wrote: post #65
reuven wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. You pay money to withdraw from your WeChat wallet into your (Chinese) bank account. I've never had to do this, because I'm a foreigner, and thus cannot remove money from there. Besides, WeChat is sitting on a pile of cash, thanks to this payment system: Everyone who transfers money into their WeChat wallet is basically giving TenCent (the WeChat company) money they can use to invest, or whatever they want. I've…

That sounds vulnerable; if Tencent is truly doing whatever they want, then a run on WeChat could be the mother of all bank runs.

Yes, this is definitely a possibility.

Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China

#87

Post by PakG1 »

gruez wrote: post #72
olalonde wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds a lot like losing your wallet or dropping it in the sewer. Except that losing your wallet is a lot worse. In the situation you described, I'd just borrow the driver's phone to login on WeChat and pay.

>That sounds a lot like losing your wallet or dropping it in the sewer You have your phone out all the time . The risk of losing/breaking it is significantly higher than your wallet which sits your pocket 99.9% of the time.

Funny aside: I've seen a lot of anecdotes on HN and from friends that having a smartwatch negates the need for your phone to be out all the time. New technologies create new problems that create new technological solutions all the time, I guess.

I suppose at some point all this might be moot in the long term because people will have succumbed to having chips implanted in their skin or brain, and we won't even really need phones anymore. /a little bit of s

Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China

#88

Post by reuven »

xster wrote: post #81
gcb0 wrote: post #70

Why would you ever need to use a VPN while in china accessing their owned services? That's great for china from an infosec perspective though. Now they know your VPN exit IPs, and if you re-use the pattern/pin of the phone to lock the wallet, they will know that too.

This may or may not be what the OP meant but if you trust Google Play and don't trust anything else like an APK from WeChat's website, then you won't be able to get it from the Play Store once you enter China. (Though you won't need to do this if you roam on some carriers like Google Fi or use the WiFi of some nicer hotels)

Yes, that was my point — that if you visit China with a non-Chinese Android phone, the phone will get apps from Google Play. Without a VPN, it won't be able to access Google Play, putting you in a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. So you need to install the VPN before you visit.

Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China

#89

Post by reuven »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #38

Nice! I haven’t seen anything written by Reuven for a while, and just recently I was thinking about potential difficulties travelling in China in the ‘age of WeChat.’ Good to see his writeup.

Wow, thanks for the warm words...

FYI, every time I visit China, I write a bunch of things on Facebook about my experiences. (I know, lots of issues there, but it's convenient...) Follow/friend me there, and you'll see more about me and China!

Re: A foreigner's guide to WeChat payments in China

#90

Post by egourlao »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #74
reaperducer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do have Union Pay, which is a special, China-only credit card. Not China-only. Union Pay is widely accepted in the United States, and probably every other country. Even small gas stations in the middle of nowhere take Union Pay.

I was SOL a couple of times visiting India and Netherlands, which I scarily found did not take UnionPay cards period! Always bring plenty of backup cash (USD, not RMB) and a credit card or two, especially if you are using Chinese ATM cards. India kind of makes sense, but the Netherlands? Seriously? I hope things are different now.

Many places in NL only accept Maestro and Visa Electron cards (pin payment cards, as they call them), and won't take any other regular major debit/credit cards. Including UnionPay.
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