Korean Job Discussion Forums

[OnTheOtherSide]

My friend gave me a free cell phone. I need to get it activated and charged with pre-paid minutes.

I went into 3 places and well, it was nothing but confusion. They understood the word "Charge-e" but when I tried to communicate t them that I needed a new number and needed that phone activated. It got nowhere.

Does anyone know what I should say? Any tips on how to get this done?

[icicle]

Have you tried telling them that you want to arrange for prepaid cell phone ...

I had weighed everythng up and decided that I wanted to go the prepaid route ... (I need a phone so I can be contacted ... But I will not be making a lot of calls ... ) So went into a shop (of one of the mobile companies) and said I wanted to get a pre-paid phone ... Different to you I did not already have a phone ... But one of the first questions was did I already have a phone ... And it was not going to be any trouble if I did ... to set it up ... In the end I actually ended up with what is to me a good second hand handset ... at a good price (one of the traded in phones) ... activated and set up ...

I think that your best bet will probably be to go into one of the bigger shops ... There are a lot of shops where I am ... Probably upwards of 10 within 5 minutes ... But in the end I decided to go into a shop on the main road ... linked to the company I had decided to go with ... and then got a person who spoke OK English and definitely enough to find out what I wanted ... help me fill out the form ... and get me successfully connected .... So it might literally just be a question of trying another shop ... Or going into somewhere like Itaewon where your chances of getting someone who can speak English to help you .... Or taking one of your co-teachers or a Korean friend with you ...

Something I have also done before when I needed to do something by myself and didn't know the words was to get a teacher at school to translate to Korean what I wanted to do ... and write it in Hangul ... If they understand what you want then that can really help ....

And if they don't totally understand it can make for an interesting situation ... Last week I needed to do an international transfer ... so send some money back from my new bank account to Australia (I had done it before last year in a different bank/town) ... So they wrote it down for me ... BUT managed to use the hangul word for changing currency rather than transfering money ... So I found out that my small local bank has at least one bundle of Australian $50 notes ... But after that ... they did do a very successful transfer for me ... which was in my Australian account (to my suprise) the next morning ...


Where are you located ?

Icicle

[OnTheOtherSide]

Awesome, thanks or the tips. It is Sunday and a lot of the shops were closed but i'll give those a try tommorrow morning. If no luck with that, i'll take the subway downtown.

I am located somehwhere in a city Southeast Korea which shall remain undisclosed. A ninja never reveals himself.....

I am not in Seoul, thank God. I went to Seoul and the general attitude there was WAYYYYYYY more stressed, fast, rude and insane. The people in my neighborhood are pretty relaxed overall.

[PeteJB]

Jumping on the thread here, is there anyway to sign up a PPS phone for overseas usage?

[OnTheOtherSide]

So I went in there today and they told me that I am required to bring a Korean friend in with me. They say that they need to see a Korean I.D. card? What the f*ck? I've never heard of this rule.

I heard that it is very, very hard for a foreigner to get a cell phone and bank account here. It's very true. I am am definantly getting the feeling that they just don't want to deal with me. A lot of cell phone places quickly escorted me out of their shop while directing me somewhere else.

This process could be so much easier if they just had it organized. It's not too complicated. Activate my phone, charge it with minutes, what's the problem?

[Cheonmunka]

Each phone has a different service can connect to. Not all stores offer to do the card phone system either. It's not like you can simply change your phone to a new service provider of your choice. It may not be cost effective at all to activate your phone. They will however, if they are not dense, want to sell you a new phone package. Which ain't that expensive now. As for the ID, man, you need some ID as it's a connection thing to a company's telecom lines. Gotta have ID for it. You may use a passport for getting anew phone on monthly billed. Everything's basically gotta have ID. If there's a form, there's a number.

PS: You can come to my family store if you want to discuss what you want. Or PM me. Well established and been doing service for E2 visa holders a long while now. No probs. However, we don't do pre-pay phones.
With store owners, sometimes there are hassles when getting things done when customers can't understand the whys or want to do things their way which is either not possible, or mostly, deletes any profit for the store that doing that way would do. There may not be any profit in what you are asking the store to do. IE: spend an hour to locate the info for the phone that you already own (so no sale,) then charge it up via faxes to the telecom co etc, maybe make money remittances - after that there just ain't any profit. Harder too if someone is loathe to let you see their ID so you can write it on the forms, or copy it for the registration element etc to get the job done.
ANyway, look, it may be easier to just get a direct debit service. If you are here for six months at least then the phones ain't badly priced. It's not going to break you. Not as breaking as not being able to get what you want with that phone done. Anyway, maybe we can help with that phone. It does depend. There are several depending factors. Not just money or profit, but workability on the provider and the phone and application stuff. Not cut and dried, believe me.

[OnTheOtherSide]