Bic Camera Shibuya East — Local services in Tokyo

I give it a 2-stars cause I had terrible experience with the LINE Mobile consultation but a good experience with the Bic Camera Sim advisor.

I actually visited the store twice: Saturday and Sunday with the purpose to change my service provider because I’m so done with my old carrier. I got some recommendations for Line Mobile but the experience turns out very disappointed. At my first visit on Saturday, the staff required me to show documents to prove my current legal status. I have my residence card but they require an additional document like juminhyo (certificate of residence from the ward office) or paid utilities bills that have the paid stamps. That’s the first red flag cause opening a credit card in japan doesn’t require that. Isn’t all you need is the residence card??? But I was patient enough so I went home, find the paid Gas bills in the recent 2 months and came back the next day which is Sunday. Cause it’s a weekend so the ward office is closed and I wouldn’t go even if they open because it’s just too complicated and time consuming. Okay, the next day I have my residence and my gas bill ready. You know what the staff said to me? They said the gas company, which is Eneos, is a private, not a public company so they can’t accept that bill! Also the paid gas bill is teared into 2 parts when you paid at convenience store so the conbini keep the middle part and give you the 1st and 3rd piece separately. The line mobile staff said they cannot accept it for that reason too! I’m like why do they make a process so strict and complicated like that? While other Japanese nationals can just hand in something like a driving license. And it costs me 2 visits already and I cannot still get to change the carrier meaning I am their potential customer. The staff asked me if I have other identification cards and I show them my insurance card, my credit card, my number card, even my residence tax receipt picture I took sometimes ago in my phone. Still all of that cannot prove that I am currently a legal resident in Japan to them. I feel a bit discriminated here. These processes are so foreigners unfriendly and the staff are not knowledgeable in advising customers at all. I mean in the first visit if they could have told me gas bill is not okay then I wouldn’t even go there the 2nd and wasted my time there, sitting, waiting, arguing, showing all kinds of personal documents just to get a contract with Line Mobile. Foreigners please stay away from this carrier.

I want to give a one star but then another staff who is a Bic camera sim advisor came and explained other sim providers to me. It was very detailed and clear so I ended up signing with another provider by their consultation. That carrirr only requires my residence card and credit card. I got my sim within 5min and it works immediately. So thank...

Not so terrible that I would give it one star (which actually means zero since that's the lowest grade) but absolutely the worst service experience I've received in Japan in my more than 10 trips to the country. Overall civil, but totally discourages me from ever buying anything here again; gives bad impression of the chain.

I was there one night looking to buy a English/Japanese electronic dictionary and nobody offered to help me - I don't look foreign at all and most Japanese service staff come forward to help me speaking Japanese and thinking that I'm local, so it wasn't because the staff there were unwilling to speak English.

The staff who eventually served me (after I asked) looked impatient and looked somewhat exasperated (big deal for Japanese service staff to show this) when I asked to check the item at the cashier. There was nobody else in the queue or in that department and it was not close to the closing time (maybe one more hour to go), so I don't see what the problem was. I bought the wrong item in the end because I was rushed through everything and it cost me $250. I could still use it, but it was not what I wanted. I couldn't exchange it because a tax refund claim was submitted.

There are better places to shop in Japan and in Tokyo.

This was in January 2017, I'm only writing it now because I've started writing Google reviews to reflect memorable retail and service experiences - both good and bad. That I continue remembering this incident in detail proves that this was indeed a very...

Don’t come to this store as they are extremely rude to foreigners! My wife and I came here and were actually 100% about to purchase an expensive $500 camera. I found about 12 empty chairs in the photo printing department and asked my wife to sit there as I looked for the camera and talk to an employee to purchase. One of the workers walked quite a distance from where he was standing just to harass and yell at my wife for sitting on a chair that was completely empty at 9pm even though there was no sign saying not to sit there. Instead of politely informing her and letting her know that customers aren’t allowed to sit there, he rampaged towards her pointing fingers at her in her face and yelling “YOU USING THIS? DON’T SIT THERE! DON’T SIT THERE!” with a very angry look on his face. He spoke in English knowing we were foreigners. The attitude from the staff was just unacceptable, who yells and harasses a female for simply innocently sitting on a chair. Never have we been treated this way for something that was so insignificant. It felt like he had a vendetta against us because he knew we weren’t from the country. Don’t come to this store as the staff here are rude...