Saturday, February 26, 2011

I had a sneaking feeling

Shinhan Bank is no longer located at its original Annandale address. I drove there today (7002 Evergreen Court, Annandale, VA), and discovered that the bank had been taken over by two other establishments. I'm having a devil of a time trying to find out where a local branch might be; neither the English nor the Korean versions of the Shinhan Bank America website is very helpful; there's no "locate a branch" link on the splash page.

I had a sneaking feeling that something was up when I first Googled Shinhan Bank and tried calling the number I found (see here). Number no longer in service. When I tried to look up Shinhan Bank Annandale on my Droid in order to navigate there... the bank itself didn't come up, but the street address did. It seems that, sometimes, the only way to find something out for sure is to drive there yourself. At least now I know that Shinhan didn't merely change their phone numbers; they got the fuck outta Dodge.

So now I'm poring over the Shinhan websites in Korean and English to determine where a local branch (with a working phone number) might be. More news as it happens, but right now, it looks as if the closest branch (and ATM) may be in New York City. While I wouldn't mind tripping up to NYC once a month to fetch payments, just to hang in the city, that might get a bit expensive.


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5 comments:

Charles said...

Ah, that sucks. The Korean site (for Korea, that is), has a branch locator (which, of course, requires you to install some stupid program). I don't understand why the U.S. site wouldn't.

The U.S. site is asking me if I "believe the power of the Shinhan Bank." I don't know, but I sure do believe in the power of copy editing.

Anyway, to be helpful: it does indeed look like the nearest branch to you may be in New York. Check out the following...

http://www.usbanklocations.com/shinhan-bank-america-locations.htm

I have no idea how up to date this is, but I'm guessing the information is valid.

Kevin Kim said...

Thanks, man. Yeah, I came up against the same "install this stupid program" thing. That's not working for either my Mac for my Windows netbook (there's a special program for the Mac on their site). I did see the 영업점 안내 link on the Shinhan Korea site, but it leads to another link for 국내 영업점, and that's the wrong 국. Thanks for the other link, though; alas, I don't have the funds for a trip to NYC right now... I'm thinking the easiest thing to do, for the moment, is just to send you my stuff. While I'm at it, I'll also send my 기업은행 card and both banks' 통장. I think there's next to nothing in the Finebank account, but I'm hoping there's a couple hundred bucks in the Shinhan. If it's under W300,000, it won't be worth sending to the States because of the exchange-rate shrinkage that'll occur (roughly W1130 to the dollar right now). I think I'd end up with around $240. Will say more via email later.

By the way, do you have a smart phone?

SJHoneywell said...

"The U.S. site is asking me if I "believe the power of the Shinhan Bank.""

I do believe in banks, I do believe in banks, oh, I do I do I do!

Kevin Kim said...

Iji dat dee Kawa-deu-ri Ryan?

(Pardon my accent.)

Charles said...

"By the way, do you have a smart phone?"

I do not. My phone is retarded. Hyunjin keeps talking about buying me a smart phone, but I am resisting the idea.