Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Blanca]

So to cut a very long story short, my girlfriend has just been hit with a bill for more than $400, in-part due to the fact that the boss she stopped working for in September 2013 stopped paying her NHIC contributions after June 2013.

A bit more detail - after stopping work 30th August 2013 (literally one week after), she went into hospital for what turned out to be 4 weeks. We left Korea on 5th November having paid the hospital bill of around $5000 (which the hospital calculated presuming she was covered by NHIC). We come back to Korea 6 weeks ago and our new boss receives a bill for 6mil KRW, which NHIC say is to cover the remainder of the bill (having worked out over the past year that in fact she wasn't covered by NHIC because she'd stopped working).

Anyway, the man from the NHIC explained that if we backpaid something called "regional health insurance" (NHIC coverage for the unemployed but charged at 84,000KRW per month) for the 5 months she was unemployed, he could make the bill go away.

But wait - she was only unemployed for 3 months - September, October and a bit of November. No, said the man. She hadn't made a contribution to NHIC after June 2013 (despite having it deducted from her paycheck), so presumably the boss had just pocketed the last 2 months' contributions.

Anyway we're looking for some advice on what to do. We've contacted a Facebook legal advice group, and I'm hunting down the boss's email address, probably with the intention to send her a letter threatening labour board action if she doesn't backpay her 2 months. What would you guys do? Also, the man from NHIC told our boss that your NHIC coverage stops the day you stop working - I thought, however, that you still had a month of coverage after you stopped working. Can anyone shed any light on this?

edit: I should probably mention we are going to pay the bill in full today (from our first paycheck...sigh), simply to get it out of our current boss's hair. He's been brilliant about helping us out with it even though it has literally nothing to do with him, and since we can (just about) afford it, we're getting it out of the way and pursuing the scumbag boss on our own.

[Lucas]

Rule no.1 of EFL teaching Korea. Once you leave, NEVER come back (to teach at least), onward and upwards.

[EZE]

There's not much you can do. The NHIC and Labor Board folks make the notoriously lazy Department of Motor Vehicles agents back home look like workaholics in comparison. Don't waste your time unless you have it to waste and nothing better to do.

[Troglodyte]

Get the LB to go after the ex-employer to pay her part of the bills. If your GF has old pay stubs and such to show that she paid her part of the health insurance contributions then she should show them. If not then it might be hard to prove so she might need to pay her part again. It's time consuming to force an employer to pay into this and the unemployment insurance (might take months) but there's nothing else that you can do to force him to go faster (unless you have dirt on her for something else illegal).

You're other option is to just leave. If you can't get out of paying that bill then get out before it becomes a bigger problem.