From here:
지난 2월 A씨 등 30대 여성 2명은 서울 송파구 신천역 부근 나이트클럽에서 주모(24)씨와 전모(23)씨 등 20대 남자 2명과 만났고, 주씨 등이 “술을 살 테니 내일 또 만나자”고 하자 다음날 서울 강남구 신사동 N와인바에 갔다.
95 만원어치의 술과 안주를 주문하고 술을 마시던 주씨는 얼마 뒤 전화를 받고 “차를 빼주고 오겠다”며 나갔고 전씨도 “무슨 일인지 알아보겠다”며 나갔다. 그러나 주씨 등은 돌아오지 않았다. A씨 일행은 와인바 주인 김모(36)씨가 술값을 계산하라고 다그치자 술값을 뒤집어써야 했다.
Apparently last February two women in their thirties, Ms. A and her friend, met two younger gentlemen at a night club. The men promised to buy the girls alcohol if they met them the next day at a wine bar in Shinsa-Dong.
After ordering 950,000 KRW worth of alcohol and food, one of the men, a Mr. Ju, received a phone call telling him to “come and move his car.” His friend, Mr. Jeon, said that he had “better see what was going on” and followed shortly thereafter. Neither of them ever returned. The two women were then forced to cover the bill by the owner of the wine bar.
It turns out, however, that the twenty-something men were actually working in cahoots with the owner of the wine bar to lure women there and extort money from them. The owner of the bar, Mr. Kim, has been taken into custody but the other two are still at large.
Kim posted a job offer on an employment website saying he was looking for Night Club PR Managers (read as 삐끼). Mr. Ju and his friend saw this ad and contacted him at which time they signed a contract which stated that the proceeds of this scam would be split 60-40 for Mr. Kim and the men respectively. Between February 8th and March 22nd they stole approximately 24.3 million KRW from 26 women.
There actions were discovered by a legal intern who uncovered the scam by carefully pouring over records of these incidents at the police station. (Confirming my suspicion that those who do the most work in Korea usually get paid the least, if anything at all.)
So if you’re a thirty-something woman on the Peninsula and you are approached by younger men offering to buy you booze–be very suspicious. If you’re a thirty-something man and you are left to foot the bill while the woman runs away–it’s called dating and you have no recourse.
추신 : Reading this article kind of reminded me of the Beijing Tea Scam. It’s good to know that this can run both ways in terms of gender.
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Or intercourse. Sucks being single sometimes!
I’m pretty sure they don’t call it intercourse after the other party has “run away.”
Well, if you’re somehow going out with a younger woman who’s promised to buy you all the expensive drinks, and then you let her go out to check on her car alone, I’d say you deserve what you get.
That was my point.
Should I have added the “If you’re a thirty-something man who foots the bill and gets laid–what the hell are you complaining about?” scenario for you?
I think hoju_saram meant “nor intercourse”.
One of us is confused, but I’m not sure which one.
That makes two of us.
It was me that was confused. Reading it again you were genuinely saying it sucks to be single. Fully pleased with my single life, I interpreted that as sarcasm.
I misread it the same way as you, too, 조엘.
Ha, the Beijing Tea Scam!
I almost got hooked by that one several times when I lived there. If you hung out long enough in the Xin Dongan Mall near Wangfujing, eventually a pair of young ladies would approach you, ostensibly to either “practice English” with you or because you “look handsome,” or “lonely” or whatever.
The first time it happened to me, I just assumed a local girl was trying to pick me up. After an hour or so of walking around the mall and engaging in some light banter, she suggested we go to a tea shop. So I suggested a bar instead. She was very insistent on going to one specific tea shop so I kinda sensed something was up, made an excuse, and left. I felt regret later on, thinking I had missed an opportunity to get to know an attractive woman, but the second time it happened I realized my instincts were right and it was definitely a “scam.”
Sure ther is deception invovled, but “scam” isn’t the proper term. The tea houses are legitimate businesses, selling legitimate products. You can refuse at any time. They’re not like the “gem” sellers in Thailand.
I liked this line in the write up though:
If you think frequenting high-end tea shops on a major tourist street in the heart of Beijing is an “authentic” Chinese experience you deserve to be scammed.
The artist thing is pretty funny too. At first I was really confused as to why:
A) I was so popular on the streets of Beijing
B) Every English speaker in the city was also an artist
It got to the point where, when someone made an unsolicited approach using English, I just ignored them.
Does anybody else find it odd that they signed a contract stating how to split the money received from their illegal scheme?
Criminal’s honor?
The scheme is illegal and the contract is invalid, since it goes against “social order.” These kinds of contracts have been known to exist. There was a supreme court case here a few years back in which the CEO of one company signed a contract to testify favorably on behalf of another company in exchange for monetary payment. The court ruled the contract invalid.
Isn’t this what bitches do all the time to guys?
not to all of us, no… Never did happen to me in decades of dating.
Milton: a small quibble: such a contract is “valid”, i. e. , properly formed, but unenforceable as a matter of public policy and, in that sense, illegal.
My bad. Thanks for the correction.
.
Isn’t that semantics Sperwer, since in common law it would be void ab initio, and as you say unenforceable, then it is effectively invalid. Is this also the basis in korea law btw?
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