I just e-mailed Celga to confirm if they still do offer that service of helping people outside Japan join an official Japanese artist's fan club, and yes, they do. .smile. Also, make sure to post the link of the official fan club website, on your order request.

Here is the reply they sent me:
Hello,

Yes that is correct.
Just send us an order request and make sure to include the following information too:
Name
Gender
Date Of Birth

Thank you.
Donnah
www.celga.com

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Current Exchange Rate ... $1 = 81 yen

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Cool, does it also ship any special items for you (for a price of course)?

Well...I've been using Celga for a while now. They've helped me order tons and tons of Perfume items on Yahoo Japan Auctions. I'm a huge Perfume fan as well. Whenever one of your items arrives, items that they bought for you at a website like Yahoo Japan Auctions, at their warehouse in Japan, they will post it [the website link for the item] on their website, under your "my bids". There you will see all the items that they have collected for you. Once you are ready to have your items shipped to you, you will need to fill up a shipping request form on their website. The down thing about joining a Japanese fan club from Celga, is you know how random stuff will be sent to you at random times in a year? Well, whenever you have an item shipped on their warehouse from the fan club, they will not let you know if you have had items shipped from the fan club. I don't know, you will need to ask them about it, to make sure, or I can ask them.

But then...How are you going to attend the members only live performances?

Oh yeah, about that...it's impossible for me to attend the members only live performances since I live in CA. I only wanna join the fan club in order to get the members only exclusive items [like postcards, goodies, etc.] that they will send out to their fan club members.

Hmm, shall take a look on it. . .

Wait, Kirei, how do you pay for the items on Yahoo auctions Japan?
Dont you need a Japanese credit card?

Celga helps me buy them. First you have to send them a bid/buy it now request from their website. Bid requests require a 50% deposit of your bidding price, & buy it now items require a 100% deposit. After you send them a bid request, on the screen it will tell you how much deposit [money in U.S. dollars] you need to send to Celga. I pay them through PayPal [www.paypal.com]. Celga prefers to be paid through PayPal, because It's very safe. You can also convert currencies on PayPal before you send money, like dollar to yen or vice versa, for example.

If you don't have a PayPal account, it's free to sign up. After you've registered, you can register any credit/debit cards or bank account number over there. Once that's all done, your free to make electronic payments as much as you want. ^^

btw, I just e-mailed Keigo-san [he is the founder and head of Celga]. I am very good friends with him on facebook, he's very nice and willing to help people as much as he can. Today, he even bought that KERA August 2010 magazine for me, the one where it has photos of MAMI-chan painting and she has her hair tied in a ponytail. He bought that for me as a free gift! .happy.

Here's the message he sent me:
Hello May san,

I bought it for you. It's a free gift for you!

It's very nice to see you on FB! I bought the extra copies and
use them for a promotion for Loli FB people. ^^ Please spread your
words! I am getting addicted to FB!!! Aren't you??

Keigo


Yup Yup! You heard it right. He said he bought extra copies of that magazine and he wants me to spread the word to anyone who wants to buy it from him. He bought those magaizines for 490yen each, about $6. I know a lot of fans here are going crazy over those photos of MAMI-chan in a ponytail.

Also, about the SCANDAL fanclub, here is what Keigo-san told me about it:

Celga Corp August 19 at 12:30am
Hello May san!

Sure, we can help you join the FC. ^^

They say:

Annual fee: 4,000yen
First time membership: 1,000yen

Total: 5,000yen

If you want, please send the order trhough Celga page.
Thank you!! ^^

Keigo

So, what happens if you lose the bidding auction, do they keep your money?
And how much does it cost for you to have Celga bid/buy stuff off Yahoo Auctions?

if they lose the bidding, you can either let them keep the money you sent and have them use that to bid on a different item that you want. Or, they will refund the money %100. You need to ask them for it. Under the "my bids' page on celga.com, there is an option that says "request refund for auctions not won". Just click on that and they will refund your money back, via PayPal of course.
About the Celga fee for them helping you bid/buy stuff, I think that for items under $20, the fee is $5. And for items over 20 or 30, the fee is $10. I'm not sure, but here is there FAQ page regarding bidding/buying:

http://www.celga.com/index.php?page=bidfaq

I will have to look through my transaction invoices that Celga has sent me on my e-mail inbox in the past. Then, I will post Celga's fees here.

personally to risky, having to use 2 different platforms to join sounds like a lot of information traveling.

Is there another way? probably. Would I like to join SCANDAL MANIA? Yeah in a heart beat.

The risk for me is greater than the reward personally, plus the good stuff you want (for instance a possible live concert for members only) you can not attend. Is $55 USD worth not attending what could possibly be the most important part of the deal?

I personally don't trust paypal. I rather not have my credit card, debit card and other money that I work so hard for available to anyone but myself.

That's true...but it's up to you whether you wanna use PayPal or not. I think it's much safer to use PayPal, rather than giving away your credit card # to the seller itself. Because once you give your card # to the seller, they can pretty much do whatever they want with it.

Thanks, and what is the fee for having them ship it to your house?

I can't really tell you, because it depends on the total weight of the package and the type of shipping you want. There's 2 shippings to choose from, either air mail which takes up to 2 weeks, then there's express mail which will take about 4 days. I will try to find out and get back to you on that. They will hold on to your items at their warehouse in Japan until you request for your items to be shipped. At one time, I had a bunch of Perfume items over there, and they held on to it for 2 months until I requested them to be shipped.

Thanks, is Celga like Tenso where there is a time limit on how long they will hold your items?

I don't know. but they did hold my items for about 2 months, when they helped me order a bunch of stuff from YJA. I had to save up for express shipping, because i didn't wanna wait 2 weeks for air mail shipping. I think I ended up paying $60 for the express shipping becoz I had tons and tons of items in their Japan warehouse.

the opening is today ryt??how to be a memeber???? .wow.

Oh yeah! The opening is today, but I don't have enough money right now. There's a lot of SCANDAL stuff that Celga is helping me bid on at Yahoo Japan Auctions right now.
There's this one poster I really want and right now it costs 3,000yen [around $34], but I'm sure the price will go up. So I'm gonna need to save up money first before I join the fanclub.

About the SCANDAL fanclub: Annual fee: 4,000yen
First time membership: 1,000yen

Total: 5,000yen

If you wanna join the fanclub through celga and you have questions first.
You can contact celga at www.bustakei@yahoo.com
They usually respond to you e-mail within 10 minutes.


Yes, if you wanna join the fanclub.
1) you have to have a PayPal account [Celga prefers to be paid via PayPal]
2) Register at www.celga.com
3) after you've registered, you must fill out an order form. To do that, click on "bid"
under "My Celga" on the right side of the screen. Paste the link of the fanclub webiste
under "item url". Under "Bid (Yen)", I don't know if you should go ahead and enter
5,000yen and click on the "Buy It Now" box, you're gonna need to send a 100%
payment/dposit. You should contant celga first through the e-mail I provided.
Under "Comments", be sure to provide your Name, Gender, & Date of Birth.
Then click submit, you will then see on the screen how much money/deposit in
dollars you need to send them. Pay them through PayPal.

for japan only or international?

That's for people who live outside Japan. So, international.

Wow, thats kinda expensive, but I might sign up if they give me free exclusive stuff every now and then.

Oh, and Kirei, so they will hold your stuff indefinitely then?
Oh, and did you see the vid of SCANDAL and Perfume I posted?

@tofu: Oh, no, I didn't see that vid of SCANDAL & Perfume you posted. Can you post the link here, n I'll just click on it?

And, yeah, they will hold you items until you request for them to be shipped. Just don't take too long though, like 4 or so months. Because they have many other customers who they are holding items for.

**SORRY. I made a mistake earlier on my last post about joining the fanclub through Celga.
Instead of clicking on "bid" you should click on "webshop order" on the right side of the screen and fill out that form.**

Member-only event,but still need to pay?The f?Sony really does know how to squeeze.They'll be rich(er) if they got into the juice business.

Heso...!!!

EugeneAng wrote:Member-only event,but still need to pay?The f?Sony really does know how to squeeze.They'll be rich(er) if they got into the juice business.

agree with YUH man...member only but still need to pay...I can see how the event organizer *I dunno who..maybe staff or others* using SCANDAL as a money machine...GENDERLESS STARE!!!

Heso...!!!