k_X_PPD_China
As I told my son, the most essential infrastructure pieces are
1) mobileNum under_your_name. You can have multiple 🙂
2) bank cards… You can have multiple, even within the same bank.
2b) banking APPs … registered with a mobileNum under_your_name
3) Alipay+wcpay … registered with a mobileNum under_your_name and bankCards under_your_name
4) subway APP/card under any name. You need ID details only during top-up.
5) bike sharing APP under any name. MobileNum vs banCard ownership can be different:)
How is wcpay registered with my passport? 钱包 -> 身份信息 -> 实名认证状态. Note this info is not available in the wechat-level (distinct from wcpay-level) settings.
When not “if” you hit (big or small) obstacles using these services, you really, badly need effective customer service[1]. What’s effective? Email is usually not fast enough. Chat is slow, and complicated due to Chinese input, and during ID authentication. I usually prefer F2F or hotline.
In general, China banks, ChnM (subway to a lesser extent) offer the best customer service thanks to the physical branches. Among the banks, HSBC is more foreigner friendly but with fewer branches.
Alipay, another infrastructure entity, is better than its peers. I spoke to hotline 3 times … stable connection.
wcpay is the worst of all. 95017 is the official hotline.. never tried.
Bike sharing is the smallest infrastructure piece. Didi has online chat that lets me speak, but bad experience. HelloBike has/had a hotline but in 2024 I only found the chat. It worked fine.
[1] Singpass would be a benchmark in effective customer service. No branches but many places to offer help to the elderly.
I foresee myself spending lots of time in China and relying on customer support. In the U.S. customer support come with a premium, but luckily no such extra cost in China.
Sugg: similar to fire alarm testing, try each service periodically.
— which infrastructure service can be available if you impersonate a family member or trusting friend.
- 一卡通 APP .. boy tested
- Meituan APP .. tested
— which China apps can “register” a mobileNumB while on SimCardA
Meituan.. tested
Alipay.. tested
HSBC-China .. tested
Wechat .. I was using 97263200
ICBC .. tested, but I changed it back to 159 because sometimes we receive smsOTP
— Case study: Beijing subway card is more essential than bike sharing. I received lots of customer support at stations. Still I need multiple alternative payment methods:
Option 1: the 亿通行 APP.. actually easy to set up smrz + Alipay binding
Option 1b: try.. set up 一卡通 APP using grandparents’ IDs
^^ these options don’t require a RMB 20 deposit 🙂
Option 2: keep my precious subway card.
.. I was able to top up using wcpay PPD
.. I was able to top up using Alipay bank card
Option 3: register additional subway cards using my passport or grandparents ID. I think I can top-up using their ID.
Better test the APP once a while.
I now foresee myself spending lots of days every year in Beijing.
- APP is currently authenticated so no password needed. You can log out to test login
- APP login by password? se8 tested Sep 2023
- APP login by alipay? Tested Sep 2023
- APP login by SmsOtp? Need #178xxx
- APP 安全密码 (security PIN) 1xxxxxxx1