While I'm an E-2 visa holder who has faced some inconveniences because of companies' discriminatory policies, I do realize that they aren't without reason when directed at those on E-2s. I don't have any statistics on teachers who pull midnight runners, but anecdotal evidence tells me that they happen with enough frequency to scare banks and telecommunications companies. Moreover, how many teachers leave at the end of a contract without cancelling service or paying all the bills?
Wagner has included a "foreigner phone chart," used by one company to show the services available based on visa type. It shows that, at this company, E-2 visa holders can either make a 200,000 won deposit to get unlimited air time (with a monthly fee), or get limited airtime for 35,000 won per month. This deposit is refundable, I believe, at the completion of a contract, though it's still a little confusing and I've never seen any explanation anywhere.
I bought my cellphone in August, 2005, after being in Korea for about a month. (It's this one, and it cost a whopping 120,000 won.) The bank where I bought it happened to be offering plans through LG Telecom and I was pleased to learn that I could purchase a phone without putting it in a Korean person's name or having them co-sign. I'm unclear on the details on these policies, though I was told by many people that this was a frequent practice. I didn't put down a deposit, either. About two years later it was time to replace my phone. After the fact I learned how to say "second-hand" in Korean because it turned out the store sold me a second-hand model. I don't know anything about technology and just wanted the cheapest, barest-bones model available, and saw one comparable to my old one. However, I couldn't buy from that company without putting down a 200,000 won deposit. Even though my actual phone company would remain unchanged, buying models from certain companies would require a 200,000 won deposit. It is refundable, as I said, though it bothered me on principle, and I ended up buying a much fancier phone than I wanted simply because I wouldn't have to put down the deposit.
Like I said I don't know anything about technology and usually don't follow news pertaining to it, so I'll have to defer to others about recent news. But speaking of buying a second-hand phone I recall this news story from March, 2008, that said company SK would turn off unregistered telephones. Nothing wrong with that on paper, though it presented a problem to those who bought a phone second-hand or who inherited one from another foreigner leaving the country. There was a letter to the Joongang Ilbo at the time on it:
Some people were using prepaid phones for scams, so SK decided that anyone using a phone not registered in their own name would have service shut off in a month.
This means that many foreigners here using phones bought from other foreigners will have to buy a new phone after March 31, even though they’ve been paying, responsible customers of SK.
I bought my phone from another foreigner, a girl I didn’t know, in February of last year. I can’t change the registration name because she isn’t here anymore. I explained this to a customer service representative and he was really nice, but told me there was nothing he could do and no one higher up I could talk to.
Basically, SK is forcing me to buy another phone because of something I had nothing to do with.
I guess I avoided that headache by virtue of buying from a then-ubiquitous LG store. Here's the five-page thread on Dave's ESL Cafe that got the news out in the beginning, in case you're interested. And here's the Dave's thread on Wagner's article.
It's also worth mentioning here that in the fall of 2007, when I moved to Suncheon and was trying to get internet hooked up in my apartment, LG Powercom wouldn't give it to me, saying they didn't provide service to foreigners. Their reason was that Koreans signed multi-year contracts, though foreigners on an E-2 visa often couldn't do that. However, I had been a customer with LG Telecom for about two years, and had a contract with LG Powercom the year before in Gangjin, and was bothered by being refused service. Here's a thread I started about it on Dave's in 2007.
I will say that one nice thing about LG Teleom is that they send you phone bills in both English and Korean.
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Quoted person:
Basically, SK is forcing me to buy another phone because of something I had nothing to do with.
Huh? You bought into a scheme to use the service that is in the name of someone you don't even know! I really wonder what would possess someone to think that might be a problem-free proposition.
When I first got to Honolulu three years ago, I was determined to buy a car, though it would be a secondhand vehicle. I looked at a lot of cars, including a used Toyota Corolla owned by someone who lived in Waikiki.
I seriously considered buying that car, until she told me (upon my asking) that the car wasn't registered in her name. The car, she said, had been a gift to her from someone else, and since she later decided not to keep it, she hadn't bothered to register it during the twelve months or so that she owned it.
This set off alarm bells in my head: Should I fork over several thousand dollars to someone who may not even be legally able to sell this car? Heck, who for all I know may not even be in legal possession of this car?
It's not exactly the same situation, but it's along the same lines. Someone off-blog was asking how feasible it was to get a motorcycle and not register it, using his foreign-looking face and inability to speak Korean to talk his way out of trouble if he got stopped by police. WTF, I asked him. As soon as something serious goes down, you're in a heap of a mess.
Really, I don't get why people do these things. And frankly, I'm a little baffled at this whole thing of people being unable to get phones. I've had a phone since 1998 and it has always been in my name, without a deposit. I have had two credit cards in Korea, and I bought a home and obtained a mortgage all in my name. I'm a foreign national. I know that there are places that will — illegally or extralegally — turn down foreign nationals for things ROK nationals take for granted.
HSBC and Citibank both told me I couldn't obtain a loan because I'm a foreign national; it was the Korean banks that had no problem lending me money.
I did once have an LG shop tell me that I can't get a phone from them because I'm a foreign national, but a call to the English line there set them straight.
Oh, and good on Professor Wagner for doing something useful and practical.
Last time I bought a phone was early 2005. I didn't need to put it in a Korean's name or have a co-signer, but I did have to put down a W200,000 deposit. At the time it was state-of-the-art and cost W300,000, so with the deposit that was a hefty chunk to put down on a phone.
Going shopping for a new phone a few months ago, I inquired about getting it back... no one knew what I was talking about. Finally, someone up the chain told me they no longer have such a policy, but it would be no problem to get my old deposit back.
The one "foreigner only" rule that really bothered me was with SkyLife. My (Korean) co-workers swore on the service, and the low monthly pay-as-you-go fees. But I was a foreigner. Not only was I not allowed to have a monthly pay-as-you-go setup like my Korean colleagues, I was told I MUST sign a three-year contract with them and pay the entire sum UP FRONT (not including the installation and rental of the dish, even though I already had a dish installed in the apartment from a previous tenant).
My Korean colleagues were really quite miffed when I told them what I was required to pay. They didn't have to sign a multi-year contract, nor pay anything up front.
When I changed jobs last year, I changed visas too. Owing to the ruthless efficiency of Suwon Immigration Office, there was a two-week lag before I got my new ARC. During this time, LG thought it best to cut off my phone, so that I could neither make calls nor receive them. This, they told me, was 'company policy'. They were not, however, able to explain why the policy was in place and exactly what nefarious practice it was meant to forestall.
Perhaps someone could hazard a guess?
kushibo, that's a good point about the guy buying a phone from a stranger when he really shouldn't have.
I don't know how common it is to buy second-hand phones, but it seems to happen quite a bit. I bought mine secondhand but I didn't realize it. The guy pulled a phone out of the display case, said it was one of the cheaper models, so I bought it. Then he handed it to me. I assumed he would pull out another one from the back. Anyway, I thought I'd only be in Korea until the summer of 2008, so I figured a year wouldn't kill me.
I always see on Facebook or other messageboards people looking to sell or give away their phones when it comes time to leave. I guess this could present a problem because people probably wouldn't officially transfer ownership.
Does anyone know what we can do with our phones when we leave? Keep them as a souvineer? Is there a charity or something that collects them?
When i talked to Sk main branch by phone about getting a phone with a sim-card back in March of this year,they said that they don't sell those phones to foreigners even if they are married to a Korean(which I am). I had the same number for 7 years with a deposit as well. I told them this and they said no. But if a person at a store wanted to sell me one then it was ok. Where is the logic in that?
Some of you may know that phones in Korea are heavily subsidized. The phones usually cost a lot more than you pay for the device, which is recouped by the service provider as you pay your monthly bill.
ROK nationals (and increasingly, "permanent" residents or "vouched-for" residents like F-visa holders) are seen as "stuck" in Korea. That is, it's easier for a company to get that money from a ROK national. That is part of the reason for charging a 200,000 won deposit, and that might explain why certain phones are not available to non-ROK nationals.
(US phones also do the subsidies and the locked-in contracts. I have AT&T — formerly Cingular — and I am now locked into one more year of a two-year contract because I bought my iPhone. As for buying the iPhone, I had waited in line to get it on the first day, just about 90 minutes at Kahala Mall, almost just for phone, only to find that, nope, I couldn't buy it that day because my eligibility had not kicked in. I had four days left on my old phone, so I couldn't buy the new one. Never mind that I'm keeping the same service provider. Fortunately, four days later, the lines weren't that long, but I did have to call around to make sure they actually had the cheapo model I wanted in stock that day.)
I also wanted to mention that regulations such as these are not limited to Korea. Living in a dorm in the US that is about 80% foreign nationals, I learn about some weird (and largely unpleasant) things that some of them go through. My Iranian neighbor, for example, was called up by the bank after being in the US about six months to inform him that Iranians couldn't have bank accounts at their bank.
I think it was actually the bank's interpretation of some Homeland Security rules, but whatever, they were closing his account so please come and get your money.
Now, I think this is an issue that ATEK or AFEK or Ben Affleck should deal with: The inconsistency in how the rules are applied. Having lived in Korea off and on since I was a teenager, I have seen how the rules have changed (and trust me, they are far, far, far, far, far better now than before — across the board). Korea was a place where there was a Korean national sphere and a foreigner sphere, and there were a lot of things foreign nationals were not legally able to do, so common, that it was almost knee-jerk to say, "I'm sorry, you can't do that." The explosion in Korean service providers occurred at the very tail end of that era, and so SK and KT had a lot of its retailers stuck in that mode. Maybe some of them still are. LG, looking at the same rulebook, realized there was no problem.
Stevie Bee, I don't know why LG would cut off your service. That seems weird. Early in the eleven years since I had LG service, my visa status lapsed twice, and nobody cut me off. In fact, in 1998 when I first applied, come to think of it I might not have even had a visa.
Maybe I'm just incredibly charming. ;)
Owing to the ruthless efficiency of Suwon Immigration Office, there was a two-week lag before I got my new ARC.
In your next life, karma's going to make you deal with US immigration.
Just in the past few weeks I've had to deal with a Taiwanese national friend trying to switch her visa status from a student visa to a work permission that is granted to people with the visa she had once they graduate.
Six weeks. Six freakin' weeks. And that's quick by their standards. Korean Immo is a joy to deal with compared to US immigration
This thread is definitely a reminder that being an expat is rarely as easy as life in your home country, surrounded by people of the same nationality. To be certain, Korea is better in some areas - and worse in others. That some stuff is being done in the name of security is understandable, but company policy is laughable. Can somebody translate "It's really company policy? Show it to me." into Korean. Taking your business elsewhere, then going back to the place that couldn't sell you a phone / give you a debit card is always fun as well.
I did that to the Sprint guy waaaayy back in the day when he insisted on a $300 deposit for my first phone. I went next booth over to the (formerly) Cingular booth. Picked out a phone, paid no deposit, signed a contract, and walked away with a working phone. At that point I walked back to the Sprint guy. I opened my Cingular phone and made a call in front of him about how cool it was to not need a $300 deposit... Walking away never felt so satisfactory...
It's ironic that uniformity in the rules is one thing that's so foreign here...
I am in a kinder, gentler place, so please do not find my post out of character. I bought a new phone right before I left for vacation. The GF ordered a nice used one off the internet for W80,000. It came with my phone number programed into it. I switched it on and was good to go, as it were.
I do not have a phone plan. I have a pay-as-you-go plan. I go to the local SK store when I need more minutes placed into my phone. There is no contract. I do not call anyone much; I usually text. I text alot. Even though calling is 3X more expensive with this pay-as-you-go-plan, I average W15,000 a month in phone bills. It is the best way to go.
As for immigration, they are wonderful. On my second visa with my firm, they called the firm and had them fax over a needed form to the office so that I would not have to go and come back. I was shocked. Think US immigration will do the same? The cannot be fired and do not have to treat you nicely. Been there. They are cnuts of the first order.
just to echo what stevie bee said, i just today received a message from my provider, the exact same message i received a year ago, saying that if i didn't visit one of their administrative offices before my visa lapsed next month and show an updated arc, my service would be discontinued. to their credit, the message was this time in both english and korean.
Interesting. My visa expires in a few weeks and I've heard nothing from the phone company.
I used a prepay plan with LG for about a year after I got here. I only paid about 10,000 won per month. Then I put my phone into my wife's name under SK, and now I pay about 20,000 per month. Morale - If you don't use your phone that much, the prepay can be a good option.
But yes it is pretty annoying having to put things in other people's names.
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