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Hello friends, I’m trying to top up my boyfriend’s China Unicom cell phone with my China Construction bank account. I enabled online payments at the bank when I got the card. I’m accessing Unicom’s official website, wap.10010.com, from my phone. When I registered for my bank account, I used my full English name, but when I type that into the screen asking for my bank information on Unicom’s website, it gives an error message asking for my correct name information. Has anyone else had this issue? Any advice for ways around it? I thought about creating an Alipay account and using that instead, but I’m worried I’ll run into a similar problem if my name being in English is the issue… I could easily ask a Chinese friend to pay for me, but I’d love to be able to do it myself. Any advice would be great!
You might need to reference the way that your bank has your name on the account exactly including the order of your first and last name, any spaces, and capitalization. I’ve never tried it through the Unicom website, but it’s easy through wechat wallet, taobao, or any convenience store.
I would also recommend to link your bank card with your Wechat wallet. Subsequently it’s very easy to top up the phone.
@Jerry, @Chris, how do I use my bank card to pay on Taobao? Every time I try, it takes me straight to Alipay when I check out. Do I have to set up an Alipay account?
There are multiple payment options available on Taobao, one of them is Alipay. Another one (which I use) is online banking. In Chinese it’s ????. If you have this set up at your bank (I noticed you said you did) it’s easy to use this without needing an Alipay account at all.
But like someone else already said, I would use WeChat wallet. Set that up and it’s even easier to top up your phone credit. It’s useful for many other things, also. More and more merchants are taking WeChat wallet as a form of payment now which is awesome.
edit… I just read the link I posted https://cshall.alipay.com/lab/help_detail.htm?help_id=255266 (that I found in February 2015 when I was having trouble), and now it seems that CCB does support passport verification… good! So, give it a go and make an Alipay account 🙂
@Mizzdrey – from my own experiences, foreigners cannot use Alipay with a CCB account. Although we can set up online payments/banking with CCB, to verify a payment via Alipay CCB requires a Chinese ID, it does not allow a passport number.
https://cshall.alipay.com/lab/help_detail.htm?help_id=255266
Some other banks DO allow passport number verification.
CCB may have changed their rules in the last year, but I’m not sure.With online payments set up + CCB, you still can buy some stuff online, I think you can still use Unionpay payments, and sign up for a Chinese Paypal account, (c2 paypal), but not Alipay, at least last time I checked.I eneded up opening an ICBC account, and you can use Alipay as much as you want 🙂 With ICBC, the online banking can even be in English(!).From what I read online, it seems some banks are weird, I think it was China Merchants Bank, that someone could not make/verify an Alipay account, but they could still use the online banking payment on Taobao — but for CCB this was not the case and no matter what I could not pay via CCB (which matches the webpage I linked up above)(Although I don’t think it will be possible for me to have both my CCB and ICBC accounts on my Alipay because CCB put my name in the style as LASTNAME FIRSTNAME whilst ICBC has FIRSTNAME LASTNAME, and the exact name has to match up with the order/name on your Alipay account.
I’m not sure how simple it would be for the bank to change my name!)Also keep in mind that to verify your Alipay account (not totally needed to buy stuff from my experience) you need to upload a picture of your visa/passport, but they only accept a bunch of countries, so if your country is not there, then you are out of luck.
I’m still not seeing the 网上银行option when I go to top up my phone on Taobao. I’ve been using the 充话费button on the right side of the homepage and once I enter my phone number and the top-up amount, it takes me straight to a 支付宝page. I don’t see an online banking option on there.
I’m still not seeing the 网上银行option when I go to top up my phone on Taobao. I’ve been using the 充话费button on the right side of the homepage and once I enter my phone number and the top-up amount, it takes me straight to a 支付宝page. I don’t see an online banking option on there.
Don’t choose the listings for Tmall.com, they only allow for zhifubao payment. Use a regular taobao listing like (https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=0.0.0.0.xre4Uw&id=18446212447) then choose 银行卡 or 其他方式
Also, if you’re ever in a pinch and you’re with a friend that does have wechat wallet, they can input your number and top up your account for you.
I’m still not seeing the 网上银行option when I go to top up my phone on Taobao. I’ve been using the 充话费button on the right side of the homepage and once I enter my phone number and the top-up amount, it takes me straight to a 支付宝page. I don’t see an online banking option on there.
It might be because you’re trying to do this on a phone – when I use the 充话费 button on the right side of the Taobao homepage it gives me the option to pay via online bank.
I figured it out with Taobao! Thanks everyone for your help, and I’ll definitely check out WeChat Wallet.
I followed this guide to set up my Alipay account.
(You need to upload two documents/images:
1. Scanned Copy of Passport
2. Scanned Copy Of VISA+entry stamp page)
Don’t to sign-up Alipay with mobile number. If you sign-up with mobile, they request Chinese ID verification and you will fail sign-up process. Foreigners must register with email.
WeChat is the best option for mobile top-ups imo.
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