My Experience with POVO After Leaving Japan - A Caution for Foreign Residents

When I was living in Japan (until May 2023), I used KDDI mobile services for many years without any issues. When I was transferred internally to Dubai, I decided to keep my Japanese number active, as I still needed it for banking, online services, and occasional verification.

Before relocating, I switched to povo 2.0, the low-cost mobile plan offered by the KDDI Group. The monthly charge was just 550 yen per phone, and I maintained two connections—one for myself and one for my wife. From May 2023 until August 2025, the charges were automatically deducted from my SMBC cash card, and everything worked smoothly.

After relocating to Dubai, my SMBC cash card expired on April 1, 2025. Since I no longer had a registered address in Japan, I was unable to renew the card. Around the same time, my bank account status changed from a residential account to a non-residential account. As a result, the automatic payments to povo stopped.

At that point, I had a vague concern that something might go wrong in the future. I had heard stories about unpaid bills causing trouble for foreigners when re-entering Japan. However, I didn’t know how to contact povo from overseas or formally cancel the service. There was no simple or clear way for a foreigner living abroad to reach povo support and close the contract properly.

povo’s support system is heavily app-based and Japanese-language oriented. From overseas—without a Japanese phone number or address—contacting customer support felt nearly impossible.

The Lawyer’s Email

Yesterday, I received an email in Japanese from a law office stating that they had been appointed by KDDI Digital Life to collect an outstanding payment.

Below is a summary of what the email stated (translated to English):

Creditor: KDDI Digital Life株式会社

Service: povo 2.0 (August usage fee)

Communication charge: 550 yen

Total claimed amount: 1,320 yen (including fees)

Payment deadline: February 27, 2026

Notice: Legal action may be taken if payment or response is not received

The payment was to be transferred to a Japanese bank account belonging to the law firm by the specified deadline. The amount itself was small—just over 1,000 yen—but receiving a lawyer’s notice over such a minor unpaid telecom bill was stressful and unsettling.

Important Lessons for Foreigners Leaving Japan

If you are a foreign resident in Japan and planning to relocate abroad, the below points would be helpful.

• Always officially cancel your mobile contracts: Do not assume that stopping payment will automatically cancel the service.
• Ensure your payment method remains valid: If your bank card expires, automatic deductions will fail—but the contract may continue.
• Keep screenshots and confirmation emails: If you cancel services through an app, always keep proof.
• Update contact details before leaving Japan: Make sure companies can reach you via email, even after relocation.
• Small unpaid amounts can escalate: Even a 550-yen bill can eventually be transferred to a law firm for collection.

Will This Affect Immigration When Entering Japan?

This is a common concern among former residents. Based on general understanding, unpaid telecom bills are civil contractual matters, not criminal cases. Japanese immigration authorities do not normally check private telecom payment disputes.

Unless the case escalates into a court judgment, criminal case, or serious legal violation, entry to Japan should not be affected.

However, if the debt remains unpaid and progresses into formal legal proceedings, it could create complications. It may also affect future credit checks, especially if you plan to apply for loans, housing, or mobile services in Japan again. For peace of mind, settling the matter properly and obtaining written confirmation is strongly advisable.

Japan is a wonderful country with highly efficient systems. However, those systems often assume that residents will always maintain a Japanese address, a Japanese bank account and they can navigate Japanese-language online platforms

For foreigners leaving Japan, this can unintentionally create problems. If you are moving abroad, make sure to cancel all contracts properly, update or close bank arrangements, keep written confirmations, and never ignore small unpaid amounts. Even a minor oversight can result in formal legal notices years later.

I’m sharing this experience not to criticize, but to help other foreign residents avoid unnecessary stress. If you’ve gone through something similar, feel free to share your experience.

What Makes Japanese People Different from Others?

Every time I read about the street fights and hooligan hostilities in my country, I am more convinced that we are still at the primitive stage of human civilizations, though it is widely thought otherwise. The motivation to start writing this post is Mr. Omar Abdullah’s tweet on the hospital fire in Kolkata, one of the famous cities in West Bengal. While our history books are proud to acclaim thousands of years of inherited civilizations, the anarchic state and the vicious uproars point to the story of an immature and halfway dropped civilization process in India.

We may have hundreds of reasons to justify the hooliganisms and vandalisms, sweetly coated with the reasons of freedom of speech and expression, democratic rights, and so on. Freedom of speech and expression should not harm others as well. Those actions that harm others cannot be counted as the result of a democratic way of agitation. Such criminal actions are the result of the desire to kill, the desire to destroy, and the animal instincts that exist in the primitive minds of human beings inherited from their uncivilized ancestors.

People in southern states of India, one state which is home to the most educated people and the other which is home to the cultural capital of India, have been misled by their political protagonists. It is hard to find ‘differences between people in Tamil Nadu and Kerala’ unless you are strongly motivated to write a thesis on that subject. The problem could have been solved through discussions rather than pulled out to the streets. The street dogs know only to fight and bark for a single piece of bone, and this is what we see and hear now. An illiterate crowd could be malleable, but one thing has become certain: now that education, or the rate of high literacy, won’t automatically bring any common sense or guarantee that the educated mass cannot be mass-hypnotized.

Is this what we had inherited from our ancestors through the so-called 5000 years of ancient Indian civilizations? The land where the looking into the self was taught as more important than looking to others had gone years back to the early stages of human development or might have stopped somewhere in the middle of the civilization process.

The chaotic state still exists in India, where multiple ethnic groups have to share common land and bread. The migration of ethnic groups and their spread were not directed with a clear objective; rather, the movements might have been caused by war, famine, and natural calamities. The intrusion of new elements into an existing system causes disorder. Disorder causes for collision. This is true in the science, and now I am convinced that it is true in social science too.

In fact, collision is what we see in our society. As the particles collide and generate heat in a system, different groups ram, and we call it unrest or agitation. This process may continue till a unification happens, and it may take years, but any society where multiple interest groups co-exists has to go through these processes.

Japan is almost homogenous and has one of the highest rates of literacy. Four years before, I read in a blog that the Japanese race is unique. I started searching for the truth of this statement and went through different academic papers and websites. There is no race called the ‘Japanese race.’. Japanese people belong to the Mongoloid race, in which the Koreans, Chinese, and other East Asian people belong. The other way around is propaganda that is similar to the one that Indian right-wing groups use to find a common ancestry for all Indians by denying outside migration to India. Scientific facts are bad for many deceptive groups.

What makes Japanese people different from other East Asian countries is their more civilized manners. That is the outcome of years of civilization processes that happened in a unique way that is exclusive to Japan. Here I don’t claim any superiority to the Japanese society, and they don’t have it either. They are just like any other country’s people with all kinds of emotions and instincts. History may have something different to tell, but observing the current practices, I feel this way. It is my personal observation that the public behavior of Japanese people, at least among themselves, if not to all the foreigners, is more refined.

There were internal fights in Japan, and there were different interest groups as there are there in other parts of the world. Japan is like a bottle into which differently colored solutions are poured, closed with the cap, shaken thoroughly, and then allowed to rest for 250 years. Now the mixture has become perfect and looks as if it is one of the unique base colors. That mixing produced a different color that is unique to Japan! Want to call it a different race? OK...

Signing off...

Breach of etiquettes while riding subway trains in Tokyo

I was told during a conversation by a Japanese friend that one of the survey conducted by Association of Japanese private railways revealed that noise is the biggest nuisance passengers get annoyed most. True! Recently everybody have mobile and almost all the time except sleeping it is the only companion for most people.

Use of mobile phone near priority seats is prohibited in Tokyo subway trains. Yes, the words written in the trains behind the priority seats could be read like this; “Please turn off the mobile phone near priority seat” This is considered as the manner while travelling in subway trains in Tokyo. Priority seats are reserved for aged people, physically challenged, pregnant women and lady passengers with babies. Priority seats or courtesy seats can be found at the end of each car.

Some of the public behaviors that attracted and impressed me in Japan are discipline, obedience to the law and regulations and cleanliness. Recently (Saikin in Japanese) I have been getting negative blows to my impression by seeing the public behavior, I must admit very frankly. Still I do praise the pin drop silence at subway trains. The self discipline is much higher than that in any other countries that I have seen. The very often noticed bad manner is the making-up of some of the J-girls. It is extremely a public nuisance especially to those sitting near to them. Applying make up while riding in the train is one of the biggest breaches of rail etiquettes, though it is written well in Japanese to please do it at home.

A good percentage of train passengers dwell in to their own world with their handsets. The handsets will be switched to manner mode. This is also one of the notices written inside the train with a symbol of mobile phone. Switch the mobile into manner mode is widely practiced in Japan while riding subway trains. "Please set your mobile phone to silent mode and refrain from making calls" is the words written inside the trains. Putting the mobile phone mode in to silent or manner mode is called ‘maanaa-modo” in Japanese language. It is written in Katakana scripts. Still some of the girls especially will be using their handsets though they occupy the priority seats. It is less offensive than turning the subway trains their beauty saloons!

Also, recent experiences force me to think there is a considerable deterioration in the cleanliness in the subway’s public places. The old and middle old generation tempts to blame the new generation’s growing ‘carelessness’ attitude, while some blames it on the recent economic troubles. The truth may be somewhere in between, but still there is considerable effort from the authorities to keep the roads and public places clean which is admirable.

Most often the breaches of manners are practiced by some foreigners too like talking loudly that will annoy the co-passengers and travelling in groups with baby strollers etc. This at one side, some of the friends have shared a peculiar problem of being a target of ‘staring’ by some of the local people while waiting for trains and riding in the trains. This one I feel may not be categorized as discrimination towards foreigners. This could be just out of curiosity. Even I will stare for a moment if I meet a foreigner at my own country. The point of discrimination is on how far the staring goes. After all, some people can not take out their eyes from some objects. Such kinds of people are there in every country and not only limited to Japan, though it is little inconvenience to become an object of staring!

When the castles of good images of Japan falls down in the mind…..

Some of my preconceived notions were getting jolts when encountered with an incident of discrimination though not directed at me. I saw it happened at Morishita Toei Shinjuku station while waiting for train towards Higashi Ojima. Though I tried to convince myself that the acts of racism were not due to the skin color of the victim, I could hardly succeed in convincing myself. There were no other reasons to believe it was not due to skin color. If I could guess correctly, probably it was due to the hate towards a particular race.

And Japan is known for it as many of the personal bloggers declare with their own experiences. I defended many of the negative opinions expressed about Japanese people through this blog.

In acts of discrimination there are always three parties involved. The one who shows the hate feelings, the victim of discrimination towards whom the acts of the racists are expressed publicly and the third one are the witnesses. I was at the third position of witness and was watching the discriminator’s actions as he walked through the plat-form from where the victim was standing in the queue.

At first I thought of not writing about this incident as it may project Japan and its majority good and kind people in a detrimental manner. The discriminator here may be an exception from the vast majority of friendly Japanese people. Though an odd event, I could observe contrary to what I have been telling to my friends that I have never seen any kind of discrimination in Japan. This one of course was pure racist comments he spat on the plat-form with his antagonistic foul mouth.

Let me come out openly with what happened. I was coming down to the plat-form in the escalator at Morishita Toei Shinjuku station. The time was around 6:40 in the evening. The pink car is no more reserved for women. I used to board into the first compartment/car since it will reach first at the Komatsugawa exit by the time the train reaches Higashi Ojima.

There was standing a person who might be from one of the many countries of African continent. The physical characteristics of people including the skin color gives sufficient clue to guess the region and race of them. The person in black was gentle in his position, dress and looks. The moment he entered in a queue, I could see the Japanese young man who was already standing in the front looked at the guy in black and uttered some words in Japanese. The J-man walked away with an angry face and he showed as if he spit on the plat-form. This was to show his unlikeness to the person in black.

We, the witnesses could not see any reason for the J-man’s anger except the one that the B-man stood in his back of queue. They had to travel together once they enter inside the train. The J-man might have dislike towards the B-man’s race. There were no other reason I could guess in mind.

The witnesses of the J-man’s venomous words were just witnessing and did not show any surprise at his action. That is the great thing with Japanese people I have observed. Japanese people have an expressionless face towards many of the events in public.

What was the reaction of the B-man? He was engaged in eating chewing gum as if nothing new has happened. Some of the people walking were looking at his reaction, but he was not looking at anybody. He was gentle in his stand and the J-man was the ugly one showed up his foul mouth at the public place. Who is the winner here!

This one event looks different and dirty among other pages of life in Japan so far. Though not a victim of Japanese racism and discrimination towards foreigners, it hurts my feelings. At many incidents, some witnesses bear deep wounds than the victims. Still I bear the wounds and remember the moment I get down to the plat-form. That plat-form was the place where the castles of flatter on Japan built from the images of beautiful and kind people fell down in my mind. Still I like to believe this is an odd incident.

Living experiences of a dog in Japan

So far I have written about my life in Japan. Many of my friends comment that I have all praise to Japanese people and Japan. They come across a considerable number of sarcastic blogs on Japan. Most of the blogs on Japan by foreigners are antagonistic in nature and narrate their discrimination experiences.

They have enough reason to prove their prejudices that Japan is highly racist and hate foreigners. All these anti-Japan venom they spatter still by enjoying the peaceful living in Japan far away from their home country where they might have been treated worse than anything. I don’t want to justify any kind of racist mentality if at all any of the Japanese national possess within them. Any kind of racism is against humanity and is therefore animal instinct.

Unfortunately enough (!) I could not come across any kind of discrimination so far during my stay in Japan and interaction with Japanese people. In fact I have been treated with well respect, friendly and get consideration as I am a foreigner. I have to still find out what section of foreigners face discrimination and why. I will try to find the truth from Japanese friends only and till then let me assert that Japan is fairly good to foreigners.

Probably, as is true with any section of society, some of the foreigners in Japan may try to see only the bad side of everything. Or their experience tends them to think in that direction? I am not sure.

I have not enough reason to blame Japanese people. But today to be frank, I have learned a complaint from a dog which has faced discrimination at his Japanese owner’s house!

Let me write all the story of this dog first in Romanized Japanese and then translate into English.

Inu no seikatsu
Watashi wa Tomo desu. Santosusan no uchini imasu. Watashi wa maiasa okusan to sanboni ikimasu. 8jigoro teresachan to gakko e ikimasu. Sorekara uchi e kaerimasu. Soshite okusan to kaimono ni ikimasu. Gogo gakko e teresachan o mukaeni ikimasu. Sorekara isshoni koen e asobini ikimasu.

Shoomatsu wa teresachan no gakko to santosusan no kaisha wa yasumi desu. Santosusan no kazoku wa tooi tokoro e kuruma de asobini ikimasu. Watashi mo isshoni ikimasu. Totomo tsukaremasu.

Santosusan no uchi ni neko mo imasu. Neko wa mainichi nani mo shimasen. Doko mo ikimasen. Watashi wa asa kara ban made isogashi desu. Yasumi ga Zenzen arimasen. Watashi wa neko to isshoni yasumitai desu.

Dog’s life (Translation)
I am Tom. I live at Mr. Santos’ house. Daily I will go for a walking with Mrs. Santos. At around 8 O’ clock, I will go with Ms Teresa to her school. After leaving her at school I will return to home. Then I will go for shopping with Mrs. Santos. Evenings, I will go to school to accompany Ms Teresa. Then we will go to the park for playing.

Ms. Teresa’s school and Mr. Santos’s office will have holidays on weekends. They will go to far away places by car for playing. I will also go with them. I will be totally tired.

There is a cat also at Mr. Santos’s house. This cat won’t do anything all the days and won’t go anywhere. While I am too busy from the morning to the night, this cat is very lazy. I have no rest day. I also want to take rest with the cat.

This is the life of our dog at his Japanese owner’s house. He wants to take rest and be lazy like the cat and he feels as if he is very tired of the life in Japan!!!

This was the story of a dog named Tom which we have studied in our last Japanese language class at OVTA. We made a lot of fun out of this story. I am not very much sure whether the discrimination towards foreigners in Japan is strong enough to compete with Britain and United States, where even “No entry for Indians and Dogs” boards were a prestige symbol of their golden past.

Attitude towards foreigners in Japan – Racism in Japan

This blog was running a poll on this subject. The question was;

‘Do you think Japanese people are fairly good to Foreigners?’

78% of the visitors to this blog responded that Japanese people are fairly good to foreign people.
21% of the visitors said ‘To some extent’ Japanese people are good
Only 1% of the visitors told, Japanese people are not good to foreign people.

What I conclude from the poll and along with my 10 months living experience in Japan is Japanese people are really good to foreigners.

Almost 95% of the visitors to this blog are foreigners. Foreigners themselves say that they do not face any kind of discrimination in public in Japan compared to many other countries. Many times the fear of Japanese people to talk in English is misinterpreted as aversion towards foreigners.

My own experience says I have not faced any discrimination till now. I used to commute the heavily crowded Toei trains and Tozai line trains in the morning and evenings. Literally the people are sand-witched. Had any of the Japanese man or woman or children show any kind of dislike towards a foreigner at their face or action, I could have sensed it.

Reading through some Forums for foreigners, I had gone through many statements that they have faced discrimination in Japan. Some of the foreign people said, Japanese people are racists. In one discussion, when I commented that it may be due to the English speaking fear of Japanese people and told my own experience during the past months, I got the answer that ‘Jayaprakash is the lucky Indian’, who have not faced any discrimination till now in Japan.

I really don’t know on what basis some foreigners who lived in Japan say that Japanese people discriminated them. I have written in this blog on June that I used to attend a physiotherapy course for the disc prolapse and sciatic pain. 5 days a week I continued the course for 3 months and now continuing 2 days a week.

The clinic I have been going is having only Japanese staff and nurses. They do not speak English and I am not fluent in Japanese. I am the only foreigner patient visiting the clinic as far as I know. As part of the treatment, the doctor and the medical staff have to touch the body. I have not seen any kind of negative attitude towards me from any of them. In fact they treat me as if I am a Japanese and exchange all kinds of wishing words in Japanese while I enter the clinic and leaving the clinic after treatment.

Coming out of the clinic, I used to enter the nearby convenient store (kombini in Japanese!) to buy snacks and juice. Instead of discrimination, I have seen the little sales girls are interested to receive money from a foreigner!. That was really surprising to me when I thought of the bad experiences narrated in the websites and forums on discrimination of foreigners in Japan.

Frankly and very truly I can say, I have not faced any kind of discrimination or racism in Japan.

To mention one more warm relationship I have with my hair dresser Takagawa san, who runs his Hair dressing saloon near Toyocho. Every month I visit his saloon. He knows my choice in the Indian hair style. Only once for the first time in March 2008 I explained in my broken Japanese to him about my hair style. He do not ask me every month about the way my hair should look like. He knows. He talk in Japanese while dressing my hair. I could catch 20% of his words and the remaining portions I correlate and guess. The communication is all about understanding between two people, not really all about language!

Some day, it will be time for Takagawa-san and his wife to take snacks and traditional Japanese food. All the time they have invited me to join with them. One day, Mrs. Takagawasan gave me a set of traditional Japanese food. At first I hesitated to receive it from them. To be frank, it was due to my fear of getting discriminated from Japanese people as read in the forums and website. But they insisted to take their food and I obeyed.

Having been passed through many incidents of life in Japan and mingled with Japanese people, if I am true to my heart, I can not say that ‘I face discrimination in Japan'. I am really sorry that I could not join that group of foreigners who likes to announce to the rest of the world that Japanese people discriminate foreigners.

For those who say Japanese people discriminate foreigners, I do not have any advise or do not know what you mean by discrimination. But think before announcing: Is it only to catch attention of public, because discrimination is an issue in your own country? So, you want to declare to the rest of the world that Japanese people are also not free from that devlish nature in the mind like your own country men?

Further reading on this subject from experienced people are recommended. click here