Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nicam]

My provincial ed dep't is paying its teachers severance a week after our contracts expire and we've left the country. Between that, pension, and an airline ticket I'll have refunded from Korea after my arrival in Taiwan (visa stuff), it looks like I'll have to keep my Nonghyup bank account open so the funds may be deposited after I've left the country.

With no online banking, and no international debit card, how can I get this money after I've left? I've heard you can have a friend transfer it for you after you've left, is this true? To complicate matters more, I've lost my American debit card (alcohol is bad) and now only have a US savings account. Can I have a friend transfer the money into my boyfriend's acct. after I've left Taiwan so the funds will be more accessible?

Sorry if this has been covered... did a search but nothing specifically relevant turned up.

[toadhjo]

Do you have any kind of checking? Perhaps you could write a check to yourself...

I'm not familiar with how Korea works really (I'm not there yet), but today I was dealing with transferring funds from one account to another in the US, and this the strategy I went with.

[jiberish]

Make internet banking. You should be able to. Most of the banks have quite well done english versions of their site too. I have an IBK account and it's easy as pie to do.

[Sector7G]

Near the end of my first year(last August),my Korean employer had a meeting for all 20 NET's where we told them where we wanted the money transferred to and gave them the routing info to do it.

My pension refund money was in my U.S. credit union the next month. It can be done!

Edit: I would send it to your savings first as at least it would be safe there. In the mean time work on getting a new debit card so you can access it.

Edit 2: I have an international debit card with my KEB account which allows me to access from other countries(hence the international part), but I am just not sure if a red flag goes up at the bank once your visa expires and suddenly the bank closes your account. I realize you would not need to keep it open for very long, but just saying, be careful.

[okayden223]

I had mine routed to my checking in the U.S. but I did all the transferring of money before I left. The pension took about 6 weeks but it showed up. Good luck with that.

[nfld_chingu]

I thought it was illegal for the schools to pay you after you leave the country?
My last (sketchy) hagwon wanted to pay us after we left but we demanded to get our money before leaving the country so the boss finally agreed. Knowing this guy, he probably was going to try to get away with not paying us.
I'm not saying that's always the case, we just didn't trust this particular hagwon boss.

[Sector7G]