Safe Deposit Boxes

If you are not comfortable with safe deposit and you don't use the items often, you can go to certain banks and deposit your belongings for safekeeping. Vietin bank, for example, will keep them for their customers for a fee per month and allows the customers to see/take out twice/month. More often than that, you have to pay additional fees. Note: it is different from safe deposit box, since they will document you have given them.

Link Vietnamese

http://www.vietinbank.vn/web/home/vn/pr … i-san.html


If you really want peace of mind, choose to live in one of those gated communities/apartments (Saigon Pearl, Manor), no thieves get in there by climbing.

Otherwise, there are always the pawn shops. They surely will keep your belongings safely (for a small fee) and the additional liquidity is a bonus .

Thanks Annata for the great advice.  I don't really want to live in the gated service apartments if possible but it is an option.  Would you trust Vietin bank with gold coins?  The pawn shop idea is novel but again can they be trusted knowing they another persons gold?

You are a very reliable source of information and rational advice.

Doublecure wrote:

Thanks Annata for the great advice.  I don't really want to live in the gated service apartments if possible but it is an option.  Would you trust Vietin bank with gold coins?  The pawn shop idea is novel but again can they be trusted knowing they another persons gold?

You are a very reliable source of information and rational advice.

In general, yes, you can trust the bank, especially if you have documented them what you have entrusted them with.
Vietnamese send their gold holdings for safekeeping all the time.

If it is the gold coins you'll entrust them with and you want extra insurance. Take close-up pictures to document the characteristics of the coins, just before depositing them. They are hard to fake, in details. The bank will then know that you have taken the pictures.

BTW, there are many companies who specialize in keeping/safeguarding your belongings/properties.
This one for example

http://www.dichvugiudo.com/lien-he.html

but I haven't used their services.

Not sure with the pawnshops. I am mentioning them as a joke, of course.

Annata,
Again great advice. I did not know about companies that specialize in storage.  I always thought it would be a great service that no one was offering.  I will check this out in more detail when I return at the end of this month.  Thanks again for your expertise.
Jeff

BTW, I am sure you have also considered the option of buying yourself a safe (két sắt in Vietnamese) at home.

Not  100% safe, but at least slow them down a bit.

I know a thief throwing down a safe from a third-floor apartment once, but it may be an exception. (Howie: I am not implying that it was you ). Besides, it was not in Vietnam (but a Vietnamese owner), otherwise, the thief may have killed a couple of people doing so here .

Anatta wrote:

Not sure with the pawnshops. I am mentioning them as a joke, of course.

Actually, depending on the law of the land, pawn shops are a good storage place and all you do to retrieve them is to refund the principal and pay the small interest fee - cheaper than storage.

But I don't think the ones over here should be entrusted with valuables that could be switched out for fakes.

There again, can you even trust banks given that they are all up to their tricks. The HSBC had to pay almost USD$2-billion for operating Mexican laundry. That amounted to TWO DAYS profits!

@OP: If you ever buy a house, I can tell you where no one will find them (except me).

If you deposit the stuff in a bank, you seal each piece in heat-sealed plastic (as they do documents) and you sign the packets with a Smartie marker pen so the bank can see but not touch.

It's what I do with my condo keys. The Manager can enter, but he better have a good reason.

Or to state the obvious, lock up.

One would practically need to be a monkey to climb up past barriers etc at my place to a door of a small balcony. But someone did and got in and stole from the previous tenant who thoughtfully warned me because it doesn't look like a threat.