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Comment by thetechlead | Hacker News Reader

> If you're a foreigner, getting a functioning WeChat account is near to impossible these days.

You are confusing Wechat with Wechat Pay which is a feature of the former. You only need a mobile phone # (foreign or domestic) to sign up for WeChat. As for Wechat Pay, getting a bank account should be fairly easy if you live in China.

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Unfortunately no longer the case. All account validations for foreigners require the above hoops to be jumped through - at least as of yesterday when we were jumping through them to activate the account of two EU clients - chat only, not payments. I may be incorrect (and I hope for any other foreigners wanting to use WeChat this is the case) - but I witnessed two data points to the contrary yesterday.

The validation procedure is not required when signing up. Validation happens only when your account changes login device or you try password too many times. It works as a security feature and has nothing to do with whether your account's phone number is foreign or not. The procedure requires you identify people from your wechat contact or ask friends sending message to your account. It's fairly easy and your friends don't have to be local at all.

You're not talking about the same thing at all.

I signed up for wechat about a month ago in the US without any issues.

Same, although I had a friend who signed up around the same time who needed to go through some verification after using it for a few months.

I signed up for WeChat a few months ago, and later found out that WeChat was warning my Chinese friends that my account was unverified and to be careful. I had no idea it was telling them this until one of them told me.

I was also unable to log into the web/desktop client. The error message just said that for security reasons, only verified accounts were allowed to use WeChat through the web, but didn't give any instructions on how to get the account verified.

That's essentially a spam protection feature. Because WeChat has so few non-Chinese users, most "foreign" accounts are actually made by spammers. So you're graylisted until they become confident you're an actual human. I've only seen that warning message about an unverified account once among the 100+ foreign WeChat contacts I have (most of them Pakistanis), but I seem to recall that the warning also included an option to verify the contact. Obviously they don't want to give spammers a way to directly verify themselves.

Interesting. I connected to my wife (who is originally from mainland China) and her family and I do not think they saw any warnings when chatting with me.

"The error message just said that for security reasons, only verified accounts were allowed to use WeChat through the web"

If non-verified accounts were to have access to WeChat web, it would be significantly easier for people to operate bots on WeChat personal accounts, by spoofing the client as per this framework:

https://github.com/Chatie/wechaty

Since 2018,newly created Wechat Account isn't able to login via Web Wechat anymore,using Windows WeChat is ok. If you don't keep your account active everyday through browsing or sending message, WeChat may be lock you out, saying it needs to verify the account.

I signed up a few weeks ago. It worked for about a week, until I tried to sign in on a desktop.

I think some number of non-China mobile numbers need verification out of the box. And they've banned most VOIP/Virtual numbers from signing up; you can't use a Google Voice number, for instance.

Then, if you do sign up, there are hair-triggers on "suspicious use." But "suspicious use" means having multiple devices, asking for a password reset, not uploading a profile photo fast enough, or more than a few weeks of non-use.

All of those things are typical for foreign visitors, who don't have Chinese friends to verify them.

One thing that I ran into pretty quickly was there are different versions of WeChat: the chinese one and the -- in my case -- American one. When I was in China early last year I needed to get invited to properly set up my account. I absolutely was not able to use WeChat Pay which was quite frustrating tbh. Basically the American version is a striped down version where you can chat with the Chinese version, but WeChat Pay is not even an option and sending/receiving red letters is also not possible.

wechat international account is not fully interoperatable with wechat china.

I signed up for wechat after reading this article... no hoops for me (in the USA)

There are two versions of WeChat, one for China and one for the rest of the world. The latter is trivial to join, but it's completely firewalled off from the Chinese one.

I don't think this is true. I've been using Wechat from US. I can see all the people's moments in China and in some groups fine. All the services I've tried so far have worked okay.

I also don't think this is true. I've been using a US based version of WeChat for a couple years now, and I have had no problems adding and chatting with people in and outside of China. I do want to add that while I didn't have to jump through any hoops to activate my account, I've had westener friends get stuck on having to be verified. I can't remember if I was able to vouch for them or not.

I looked into this for my business. I think you can talk to Chinese users, but there are restrictions on how your own content is seen and broadcast.

Can't remember the specifics though.

From experience, this is simply not true. My version of wechat is registered with a US phone number, installed from the google play store on a google phone, not sponsored, and while I can't put money into wechat pay my friend can still transfer it

You can also still use all the social features everyone is used to in China.

Can you talk to Chinese users?

Same situation here, and I talk to Chinese friends exclusevly through WeChat

> while I can't put money into wechat pay my friend can still transfer it

Really? I've had people send me red packets but I can't accep them as I don't have a Chinese bank account or Chinese ID

That's completely untrue. There is no firewall at all. I'm using it right now.

I was in a wedding in China, so naturally WeChat was how the groomsman communicated. Afterwards, I was looking forward to staying in touch with whom I met there. While in transit back to California my account was marked suspicious. I was never able to gain access again. I created a new WeChat account that works, but would've enjoyed having my original.

This is not true. I signed up using my Australian mobile number, the wechat app was downloaded from Google Store which is not even accessible in China.

Welp. I went to sign in again after three days and my account was suspended. I have to find a 6 month user of WeChat who hasn’t approved too many wechat users to approve me.

I think it may be because I didn’t upload my contacts. Or possibly because I didn’t add anyone and start chatting. But maybe it was because I’m in the US. (Or a bit of each)

Not true

I can corroborate that we were unable to activate a wechat account for my (western) friend. Not payments, just a normal chat account.

Upon registration, Wechat asked him to get someone to confirm/sponsor his account. I tried to, and was told that my account couldn't verify other accounts because my account was suspicious.

I then solicited my spouse's help. She managed to go through the process of verifying his account, but when I told my friend to try logging in again, he said he was still marked as "suspicious" and wasn't able to log in

Edit: this was recent (last week)

Of course he was marked as suspicious: he previously tried to get a suspicious person to sponsor him. :)

By suspicious do you mean, identity fraud related issue or your social credit score was not high enough?

So what should tourists do now?

10 months ago, I arrived in Shanghai for a week-long business trip and was able to create a WeChat account, but unable to add funds to Wechat Pay by any mechanisms available to me...I had cash from the airport but it took giving some cash to my local sponsor and having them send me some funds to do something as simple as ride a rental bike.

Sounds like you just found a business opportunity for people in china.

There actually are businesses that will validate your account for you (if you are really willing to give them your username and password), and others that will send you money through the app that you can then spend to some degree (1000CNY max balance, 200CNY max sent at a time) without having a Chinese bank account of your own. They do charge way more than the exchange rate for this service.

I have to second this. I recently lived in China for a few months. As long as you have an address, visa, and passport(and are willing to hand the Chinese government your social) it’s easy to get a bank account.

that was scary

You need to give the Chinese government your US SSN? Please tell me I have misunderstood.

When I was in China, they accepted my US passport number for things like opening bank accounts. Things may have changed, but I doubt it.

I believe almost international banks require SSN for US citizens. It’s a US thing and why Swiss banks are less popular. US IRS doesn’t want its citizens to hide money in other countries and pressures foreign countries to comply

Heh, then I guess you do not know the lengths the IRS goes to track the income of US persons wherever they are. Double taxation of US citizens has even pushed some dual citizens to renounce their US citizenship...

Then IRS should have information about foreign accounts. And guess what, they already ask for that. It's fine.

The other way around is what I find concerning.

The IRS requires that local banks take the personal data of US citizens simply because it does not trust Americans to cooperate willingly. And I think that's a fair assessment, because no one would willingly pay taxes to two countries at once.

You have to do that in pretty much any foreign country because of FATCA — assuming they’ll allow you to open a bank account at all.

No banks ask me for my SSN in Thailand when I open accounts. They report as required by FATCA. Presumably your US passport number is adequate.

They probably already have it anyways. From the extensive apt campaigns.

To add more specifics to the other comments:

If you're required to pay taxes in the US for any reason, you have to give just about any bank in the world that will accept you either an IRS form W9 (citizen or "US person") or W8-BEN (anyone else).

The US government requires this.

That's because of FACTA. I know some banks over here (France/Western Europe) outright refuse US clients because they don't want to deal with that stuff.

China and the US have a bilateral agreement about this I believe. It's to make sure Chinese citizens aren't storing money in the US and vice-versa. I imagine a US bank would do something similar to a Chinese national.

Nothing to do with the bilateral agreement, it’s because of FATCA.

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