Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Andyc24_uk]

Does anyone else recieve an insane amount of unsolicited spam/sales calls and/or 'wrong numbers' on their cellphone?

I've been here three years, and had three different phones with three different companies - initially KTF, then T-mobile, and now LG (or OZ, as they confusingly brand themselves these days). The past two years, no problem whatsoever - with KTF, I recieved the odd wrong number from a Koeran who was invariably startled to hear a 'Yeoboseyo' in an English accent; with KT the same, although I did start getting a couple of spam texts/calls around this time last year, perhaps four or five a month but no worse than what happens back home...

However, in the 5 months that i've had this OZ phone, the amount of crap I get has become ridiculous. An average of 4-5 unsolicited spam texts every day, and in the last couple of months, at least one, sometimes 2 or 3 calls each day from numbers I don't recognise (and the only people who have my number are friends and the post office); at all times of day - including today while I was teaching a class and had forgotten to switch my phone to silent. (Inevitably, this was about 30 seconds after I chewed out a kid for not switching his phone off in class, which provoked a red face from me and much amusement among the kids - luckily they found it funny and we had a good joke about it)

This started within 20 minutes of me leaving the store with the brand-new phone, I immediately got an ad message - so I can only assume that LG must have sold my number to some dodgy spamming mailing list before they sold the phone. A couple of the numbers that have attempted to call me I've found listed on a Japanese website which appears to list numbers known to be used by scammers/crooks...

I've tried calling their customer services people to get my number protected from spammers, and had a Korean colleague call for me as well, but all the advice i got was 'use the block number feature on the phone each time you get an unsolicited message'. Right, but since it's from a different number each time, that's not going to be much use, is it?!
A lot of the numbers which call seem to be 02-XXX-XXXX, or 070-XXXX-XXXX; with the odd 010- cellphone thrown in for good measure.

It's just irritating, especially the calls - Anyone else have this problem? or know how to solve it, or who to contact at LG/OZ to make an official complaint?

[interestedinhanguk]

No help here, but I have the same problem with LG. I've had them about a year and a half, and it's always been bad, but the past 6 months seem the worst.

A lot of the time I get 070 calls that ring once then stop.

I always answer my phone with 'hello' (do you really answer in Korean?). It's amusing how the people talk frustratedly in Korean when they've called me mistakenly. I try to explain that they have the wrong number, but the 'hello' and poor Korean skills SHOULD be enough.

[Andyc24_uk]

I've started answering in English again now... I was trying to be good and treat it as an excuse to practice my Korean, but the number of times the imbecile on the other end has starterd trying to sell me some crap I don't want... To be honest, I usually don't even pick up if I don't know the number now, I just hit cancel... I'd love to find a way of specifying a 'white-list' of the numbers you want to allow though, so I can allow the 30 or so people who might legitimately call me to do so and block everyone else...

[redaxe]

Usually it's just your phone company calling to sell you additional service. Same with the spam text messages.

[Andyc24_uk]

It's not that most of the time, unless the phone company also offers credit cards, loans, poker rooms, sex chat lines, ginseng supplements and god knows what else... and even if it was, 5 or more sales pitches a day pretty much amounts to harassment...

[captain kirk]

Cell phone = spam in a can. And boy do Koreans love Spam, especially aound Chusok.

[Andyc24_uk]

Haha I think I'm getting the gift-wrapped 2-for-1 multipack with the fancy bow on it at the moment...

[laguna]

They sell cell phone numbers in Korea, something that is insanely illegal in most countries.

I guess it's like 7am megaphone politicians, eventually they will figure it out through trial and error and time that people hate it with a passion.

[Jake_Kim]

You were simply allocated a 'tainted' number by LG. The same thing happened to my family once with SKT.

Your number was owned by someone else, he/she had left his/her number with too many companies who may or may not have sold it, lost it, gotten their database hacked, or whatever, and now all the spammers out there have that number on their list. And the previous owner ditched the old number, maybe because of spams, or perhaps he/she switched to another carrier for a new handset.

After that, you unfortunately happen to be the sucker to succeed such a tainted number when you began subscribing. If you can't stand it, you just have to get a new number - some are clean, some are not, there is no way for you (or even for the carrier) to know beforehand.

[schwa]

My account is with LG too but I only get maybe one spam text a week.

[sunnyvale]

I had the same problem for a couple of years, but then I started adding the phone numbers to my SPAM folder. The calls and messages have all but stopped.

[red_devil]

I got a ton of wrong number calls when i first got my number. Than after about a year it abruptly stopped. I got a ton more SPAM text messages now than calls.

[isthisreally]

It's not LG, my old LG phone was fine my newer KTF one is spammed out. I figure it's the number I got. Koreans have to use their phone number for everything including logging into websites. So it probably depends on who had the number before and who they gave it to.

I assume also that spammers would just target every possible number that's 010 maybe some others too. So spam may just be generally increasing for everyone.