Korean Job Discussion Forums

[gennam]

I am getting super excited to move to Korea in about two weeks, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to acquire a cell phone. My recruiter sent me information about The Arrival Store, which offers a cell phone upon arrival, and I was wondering if that is a good way to go. Is it really as difficult as I have read to get a cell phone in Korea the old fashioned way? Any suggestions would be immensely helpful!

[Troglodyte]

If you want a prepaid phone then you go into the shop, ask for a phone, pay for it and they activate it on the spot. It will take a few minutes for them to photocopy your passport and fill out a form and such but you should be in and out within 5 mintues.

There are a bunch of places right near the subway exit in Itaewon. They speak English and can sell you a new or used phone with English menu set up.

If you want a regular monthly plan then you have to wait until you have your ARC.

[northway]

[Troglodyte]

You can get a prepaid account at any of the phone companies with just a passport. That said, it should be noted that most shops don't want to deal with that. If you want one of the main companies then you'll have to ask around to find one willing to set you up. Once you have an ARC, you can switch over to a monthly plan and keep the same phone number.

What a lot of people do is start out with one of the smallish companies that deals primarily in prepaid accounts. After they get the ARC they get a more permanent number with one of the main companies. It's a lot less hassle.

[thatkidpercy]

[gennam]

Thank you all so much for your help!

[Drew10]

[Ibsen]

I have no idea what the "arrival stores" are, I must have missed them when I got to Korea, but your best bet in my opinion is to head over to Itaewon once you get settled in. The subways are super easy to use here or you could even take the bus which would be like 20 minutes faster, but a bit more complicated if you are new. From the subway there are a bunch of little phone shops and most everyone in them in Itaewon speak decent English. All you really need is your passport and about 50k won (at most) and you'd be set. I was able to get a pretty decent phone for 10,000 won (+10k won reg fee and 20k won in prepaid minutes I chose to add).

[jhicks99]

In my opinion, you'll be pretty miserable here without a smartphone. You can find a lot online used quite cheap (about 300,000 for a used Galaxy S2, a solid deal on an amazing phone) then once you get your AC card you can get a plan without a contract with either KT or SK (avoid LG, their phones are limited to their network so resale values are low and they're not as compatible with foreign carriers). I was paying around 50,000/month for unlimited data with my S2 (owned, no contract) until I decided to upgrade to something new on contract.

If you think you might be a while, get a new contract. Your penalty after one year will be around 400,000 or so, but you can either sell the phone at that point if you leave and cut your losses, transfer it to someone else or just buy it out and take it home. Either way, I can't imagine not having a smartphone in this country, you'll just have to wait a month or so until your ARC card rolls in.

[radcon]

[jhicks99]

[wishfullthinkng]

[Drew10]

Here's a touch of general advice.

You can open a bank account with your passport to get it going, but once you have your ARC, go in and change the information on your account. Make sure your name appears on your account exactly as it does on your ARC, and make sure your ARC number is on the account, and not your passport number.

In my experiences, this is the biggest problem with expats and opening accounts.

When the phone companies try to activate your phone, their system runs a check against the bank system and everything has to match exactly or they can't activate your phone.

It's a system thing and not an idiot sales person thing.

[porkchopsammich]

My girlfriend and I really want Smartphones, but we've only planned to be in Korea for 1 year (no 2 year contracts), and don't want to go through The Arrival Store because it seems that they are capitalizing on peoples apprehensions about moving to the country by overcharging for the phone and service.

What solutions do we have available to us? Can we bring a phone with us to use in SK? Can we get pay-per-use data and phone service with any of the providers without paying through the nose?

[fustiancorduroy]