Apparently my dislike of Korea Telecom is well justified, since 26 “officials” and 40 employees at subcontracted “agencies”, from both KT and Hanaro, have been busted for ID theft. This is just the tip of the iceberg too.
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Aside from ID theft, KT are the worst phone company in Korea for foreigners to deal with follwed by SK. They make you pay a 200,000won deposit for a plan, advertise cheap phones with a plan but only for Korean citizens with a 주민등록번호. Pre paid is a burden when you can’t recharge anytime anywhere, and not on the weekends, even though they are open. LG was more flexible with foreigners and a proper ID check. I have lived in 4 countries and Korea has a long way to come in the service it provides to ‘foreigners’.
Have things changed since last year when I left korea?
Don’t get me started on the 주민등록번호 and internet bookings, purchases, clubs etc. That is a whole thread in itself.
I would also point out that both Korea Telecom and NIDA (National Internet Development Agency of Korea) run the APNIC root servers that connect Korea to the rest of the world. Some of their personnel there seem to be taking money from spam organizations as well and, nowadays, that means big, globally-organized crime.
oh no … say it ain’t so … a Korean taking $$$ for doing something … I’m shocked !!!!
#1 -
According to the Metropolitician, things have gotten better, at least at SKT (though if you’re on an E-2 visa they still require a 20만원 deposit):
http://metropolitician.blogs.c.....der_a.html
Also, more Korean websites seem to be offering an option for foreigners to register using their foreigner ID number. Heck, I shocked myself last night by successfully creating a Cyworld account (on the Korean site, not the new us.cyworld.com).
And that cutoff proves that Apple still needs to get their collective shit together vis a vis international text input.
Clarification: That cutoff (#5) proves that Apple still needs to get their collective shit together vis a vis international text input on the Windows version of Safari. No problems on the Mac.
This is from an article in the JoongAng, quoting a consumer group that is suing KT and Hanaro:
Organized crime indeed. The police have not arrested everyone that should be arrested either.
#3:
oh no … say it ain’t so … a Korean taking $$$ for doing something … I’m shocked !!!!
Theft of information is a global problem. My credit card was changed suddenly, and later, I found out why when I received a letter in the mail explaining that my personal information, along with that of hundreds of thousands of other customers, had been sold by an employee for “marketing purposes” and that there was no evidence of attempted misuse of my account.
#5. I got my cyworld up with an email address in 2003. I was clicking on random buttons (Korean was limited then) and somehow made it!
Didn’t make me feel any better when trying to make travel arrangements or book movie tickets online and getting rejected as I’m not a Korean citizen. Then bus/train and movies get sold out before I can purchase a ticket.
(sorry to change subject of original post)
My sister in law is a customer of theirs. I don’t think there were any problems on the ID theft front, but recently her Internet connection started acting up. She called it in, and the employee KT sent said Sure, that’s normal, you’re sharing your Internet connection with someone else [her parents, downstairs], and we are blocking this kind of behaviour… How nice. Except that the blocking thing doesn’t work if you lift the receiver of your phone! Mwahahaha. Assholes, and incompetent!
#9 - 2003? I’m guessing that was before they implemented identity verification then. Now, when you click the link to register, they take you to a screen where you can choose Normal, Foreigner, or Business registration. Normal requires 주민등록번호 to proceed, Foreigner requires 외국인등록번호, and Business requires either a corporate tax ID number or the proprietor’s 주민등록번호.
As for ticket sales and the like, Ticketlink (for one) is now allowing foreigners to create accounts (again requiring a 외국인등록번호). Can’t speak to the other ones, as I’m in a small enough city where I’ve generally been able to get my movie/bus/train tickets in person.
I think the problem is the Korean laws requiring identity verification for most types of online transactions. Unlike most Western sites which use credit card billing data (which, to the best of my knowledge, comprises an international—and internationally accessible—database) for this type of verification, the Korean laws seem to require verification through the government-issued ID system. It would be like having to input my SSN (Social Security Number) every time I wanted to create an account on an American website.
The problem is complicated by the fact that while citizen IDs and foreigner IDs are similar, they’re not the same, and they’re administered on separate databases. It seems that many Korean sites have not expended the extra effort to connect to the 외국인등록번호 database and open registration to resident foreigners—but, as I stated before, this also seems to be changing. Thankfully.