MPF - a good idea gone wrong
MPF is Hong Kong's attempt to institute a mandatory pension fund scheme on Hong Kongers to save money for their retirement.
But like all good ideas in Hong Kong, it fell right off the tracks leaving everybody to pay but the government and companies
The MPF is a government-sanctioned law requiring businesses to institute a scheme where workers have to save toward their retirement. Where it goes wrong is that instead of saving the money with the government, workers have to save through a bank. The result? Everybody has to have an accounting degree and civil law experience to understand the forms and contracts to sign and monthly notices of account updates and contract changes.
The forms are complicated. And the forms are different for every bank. Your employer is required to sign you up, and have pre-filled out forms for the bank they use to transfer the MPF money. If you use your own bank to keep your MPF money, you have to fill out other forms, which are not the same.
The whole thing is ridiculous. The banks are following a government sanction, all the while, I suspect, make money off the whole matter, as banks don't do just anything without a profit. And I fear the people are losing out - who has an accounting degree to monitor their account from losing money - or even keep track of their account? What's keeping people from losing their account completely? And who has the civil law background to argue in their own defense in the situation a most-certain screwup from banks? I worry.
I've had to fill out MPF forms 3 times now for 2 different jobs. Twice for the two jobs and once to transfer the money from my old job's to my new job's.
Now since I'm leaving Hong Kong, I want all the money. Simple? No.
I tried calling my MPF bank, Manulife, which fortunately is a Canadian company with headquarters in Toronto. I like to be supporting a Canadian company.
I look to the bottom of a notice I received for a phone number, and call it.
"Press 1 for English." (pressed) "Please type in your 9-digit Manulife number."
What is it? I don't know. I look for my "MPF Certificate" on it there's a 9-digit "account number". This must be it.
"I'm sorry, that number doesn't work. Please type in your 9-digit Manulife number."
(tried again.).
"I'm sorry, that number doesn't work. Please type in your 9-digit Manulife number."
I look for another number. There's my 9-digit serial number.
"I'm sorry, that number doesn't work. Please call back another time. Goodbye"
Nobody answered the phone! Ridiculous! It just hung up!
3 phone calls later of being hung up on and I'm in disbelief. I evidently don't have a 9-digit Manulife number, and their phone line isn't answering!
I look for another number in my Manulife literature. I call it. Same ridiculous phone line.
Again, the gap between idea and action, between planning and execution.
I look at my papers, I see some chinese there - it's the chinese name of my Manulife representative. There are 8-digits. Is this a phone number?
I call it.
"Hello?"
"Oh my god, are you (my Manulife representative)?"
"Yes. How can I help you?"
"You can start by fixing your stupid phone line. "
"Ha ha - really?"
"Don't laugh. How many times do I need to call? How many times do I need to be hung up on? I don't have a 9-digit Manulife number. What am I supposed to do?"
"Sorry sir."
"Don't be sorry, fix it. This is supposed to be a Canadian company, right? In Canada the lines don't hang up on you, somebody eventually answers the phone. How was I supposed to find your number? It's in Chinese!"
"Sorry sir. Now how can I help you?"
"I want to take out all the money I have with your company....."
My representative followed up on my file. Seems that the money didn't get transferred from my previous bank. "You were supposed to call us to give us the information on the form."
"I don't understand the form and I don't like MPF."
"Still you should have contacted us."
"How? Your phone line hangs up on me."
"Ah yes." I feel at this point she is worried about another angered outburst.
I offer: "I should come into your office to discuss this."
We arrange a time and after work I go to her office. She asks me on the phone to email her my requests for the account, and also my problem with the phone line so she can resolve it.
She calls me the next night to tell me she hasn't received my email. I assured her I sent it.
"To what address?"
"To (email address)"
"Ah yes, that's right...when?"
"Yesterday 5:16pm."
My accuracy in both her email address and time sent threw her off. I was proud for being able to recite this data so abruptly to her queries, but truth be known I had committed these facts to memory anticipating further problems with my account.
"Okay, well I will email you and give you the address of my office."
"Okay. Thanks."
I got home and re-sent the email, and at work the next day printed out a copy of the email. Wow, if these people, who are managing my thousands of dollars in retirement capital can't even receive emails, we're in trouble folks.
I go to her office after work the next day. I've brought my "MPF" file. We meet, we greet, we sit with her colleague. The man explains to me that since one of my forms had wrong information in it, they couldn't get transferred the money. The man asked me what information I have about my previous MPF account.
"Here." I said as I plopped down my 2 inch-thick file of MPF hell. "Go through it as you like. I can't understand it."
They gleefully went through it and concluded that since the money wasn't transferred out within 3 months, the account turned into a savings account, and thus couldn't have money transfered out. My representative's colleague was going to ask me why I didn't contact Manulife sooner, but my representative waved him off from that subject, anticipating an outburst.
Perhaps this would be easier if I had an accounting degree and experience in Civil law. Just to get my money out of MPF to go home. What did we do? To save you the already-tiring story, here it is summarized:
But like all good ideas in Hong Kong, it fell right off the tracks leaving everybody to pay but the government and companies
The MPF is a government-sanctioned law requiring businesses to institute a scheme where workers have to save toward their retirement. Where it goes wrong is that instead of saving the money with the government, workers have to save through a bank. The result? Everybody has to have an accounting degree and civil law experience to understand the forms and contracts to sign and monthly notices of account updates and contract changes.
The forms are complicated. And the forms are different for every bank. Your employer is required to sign you up, and have pre-filled out forms for the bank they use to transfer the MPF money. If you use your own bank to keep your MPF money, you have to fill out other forms, which are not the same.
The whole thing is ridiculous. The banks are following a government sanction, all the while, I suspect, make money off the whole matter, as banks don't do just anything without a profit. And I fear the people are losing out - who has an accounting degree to monitor their account from losing money - or even keep track of their account? What's keeping people from losing their account completely? And who has the civil law background to argue in their own defense in the situation a most-certain screwup from banks? I worry.
I've had to fill out MPF forms 3 times now for 2 different jobs. Twice for the two jobs and once to transfer the money from my old job's to my new job's.
Now since I'm leaving Hong Kong, I want all the money. Simple? No.
I tried calling my MPF bank, Manulife, which fortunately is a Canadian company with headquarters in Toronto. I like to be supporting a Canadian company.
I look to the bottom of a notice I received for a phone number, and call it.
"Press 1 for English." (pressed) "Please type in your 9-digit Manulife number."
What is it? I don't know. I look for my "MPF Certificate" on it there's a 9-digit "account number". This must be it.
"I'm sorry, that number doesn't work. Please type in your 9-digit Manulife number."
(tried again.).
"I'm sorry, that number doesn't work. Please type in your 9-digit Manulife number."
I look for another number. There's my 9-digit serial number.
"I'm sorry, that number doesn't work. Please call back another time. Goodbye"
Nobody answered the phone! Ridiculous! It just hung up!
3 phone calls later of being hung up on and I'm in disbelief. I evidently don't have a 9-digit Manulife number, and their phone line isn't answering!
I look for another number in my Manulife literature. I call it. Same ridiculous phone line.
Again, the gap between idea and action, between planning and execution.
I look at my papers, I see some chinese there - it's the chinese name of my Manulife representative. There are 8-digits. Is this a phone number?
I call it.
"Hello?"
"Oh my god, are you (my Manulife representative)?"
"Yes. How can I help you?"
"You can start by fixing your stupid phone line. "
"Ha ha - really?"
"Don't laugh. How many times do I need to call? How many times do I need to be hung up on? I don't have a 9-digit Manulife number. What am I supposed to do?"
"Sorry sir."
"Don't be sorry, fix it. This is supposed to be a Canadian company, right? In Canada the lines don't hang up on you, somebody eventually answers the phone. How was I supposed to find your number? It's in Chinese!"
"Sorry sir. Now how can I help you?"
"I want to take out all the money I have with your company....."
My representative followed up on my file. Seems that the money didn't get transferred from my previous bank. "You were supposed to call us to give us the information on the form."
"I don't understand the form and I don't like MPF."
"Still you should have contacted us."
"How? Your phone line hangs up on me."
"Ah yes." I feel at this point she is worried about another angered outburst.
I offer: "I should come into your office to discuss this."
We arrange a time and after work I go to her office. She asks me on the phone to email her my requests for the account, and also my problem with the phone line so she can resolve it.
She calls me the next night to tell me she hasn't received my email. I assured her I sent it.
"To what address?"
"To (email address)"
"Ah yes, that's right...when?"
"Yesterday 5:16pm."
My accuracy in both her email address and time sent threw her off. I was proud for being able to recite this data so abruptly to her queries, but truth be known I had committed these facts to memory anticipating further problems with my account.
"Okay, well I will email you and give you the address of my office."
"Okay. Thanks."
I got home and re-sent the email, and at work the next day printed out a copy of the email. Wow, if these people, who are managing my thousands of dollars in retirement capital can't even receive emails, we're in trouble folks.
I go to her office after work the next day. I've brought my "MPF" file. We meet, we greet, we sit with her colleague. The man explains to me that since one of my forms had wrong information in it, they couldn't get transferred the money. The man asked me what information I have about my previous MPF account.
"Here." I said as I plopped down my 2 inch-thick file of MPF hell. "Go through it as you like. I can't understand it."
They gleefully went through it and concluded that since the money wasn't transferred out within 3 months, the account turned into a savings account, and thus couldn't have money transfered out. My representative's colleague was going to ask me why I didn't contact Manulife sooner, but my representative waved him off from that subject, anticipating an outburst.
Perhaps this would be easier if I had an accounting degree and experience in Civil law. Just to get my money out of MPF to go home. What did we do? To save you the already-tiring story, here it is summarized:
- We prepared the forms to transfer the money out from my old MPF account, into my Manulife one.
- Then we prepared the change of address/contact forms on my Manulife account to contact me in Canada (if there's problems, etc.)
- Then we prepared the forms for Manulife to send me my cheque of all my MPF information
- Then we prepared the forms for the Government to sign allowing Manulife to send me my cheque
- Then we went through a list of Government local offices I can visit for my next stop of my "MPF Hell Tour 2006"
- Then I went to the Government local office to have my MPF-release form signed, stamped, dated and a Government employee listen to my sworn testimony not to misrepresent myself while withdrawing money from my mandatory retirement scheme, and not to eat cats and kick dogs
- And now I am putting forms together to mail to Manulife.
posted by CCS at 11:16
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