Quote Originally Posted by kyuven View Post
I, too, lived in Japan and about half of the ATMs i used would accept neither my mastercard nor my domestic (Japanese) ATM card, despite the ATM card being issued by JP national. It made paying my bills considerably difficult.
So no, this is not completely false. Some of my classmates had to have 2 or more bank accounts just to be able to pay their bills.
Also note I didn't live in Tokyo, Kyoto, or Osaka areas, however.
I've been in japan goin on 4 years now. My US issued card worked at any post office ATM when I was up in misawa for 3 years and it works in any convenience store or post office atm here in okinawa. Might be the fact it was a master card you were using as I have a visa and had absolutely no issue.