Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Smithington]

I tire of Korean banking incompetence. Banking for foreigners here is just awful. Even the one card (Korea Exchange Bank) that allows us to withdraw money abroad is as unreliable as can be. The card works one time abroad, then not the next time, and on and on. I recently cancelled my card because its not worth relying on it when travelling. It's as likely to let you down as not.

Then last week I finished a Gepik contract and was awaiting my severance pay. At the last moment my co-teacher tells me that I need to get a Nonhyub bank account to get my money deposited. I ask what's wrong with my regular bank(KB). It's always been deposited there in the past. She says all Gepik severance pay now goes through Nonghyub, and will be transferred to your regular bank in a few days. I think fine, whatever. So we're rushing around at the very last minute of my second-to-last day at work, dashing from one wrong bank branch to another after another. Finally she learns that we need to go to the home branch in the next city. So we speed there (through red lights, of course) and manage to sneak in as the bank doors are lowering. We get the account arranged, and depart half an hour after the bank's closing time. Anyway, it gets done. But just.

That out of the way, I'm patiently waiting for the severance this week, wondering when it will show up in my KB account. Then yesterday I get a text from the co-teacher saying Nonghub tried to make the deposit but couldn't actually transfer the funds to my KB account. I ask why. She says because the names on the two accounts don't match up. WTF? How incompetent do you have to be to enter a person's name incorrectly when you have their ARC card and passport right in front of you? We're talking about a pretty important thing here - one's money and access to it. So the co-teacher says I have to find a KB bank in my new town, go there, wait in line, fill in forms, and adjust my name so its in line with the name entered at Nonghyub. And how will I do that? Why, by showing the bank the exact same documents I showed them in the first place.

The incompetence of Korean banking (and administration generally) is truly sub-par.

[Chaparrastique]

The UK banks are possibly worse. Basically they treat you like a criminal if you reside abroad.

[jazzmaster]

[cj1976]

The last time I opened bank account in the UK, I had to wait 10 days for a credit check. They wanted to ensure I wasn't a criminal or i wasn't going to rack up a huge overdraft - even though I had applied for an account without an overdraft. Ten days just to see if I could open an account to deposit my own money. Ridiculous.
I remember once when I went £5 overdrawn and they sent me a letter to tell me. That letter cost me an extra 20 for 'administration' fees.

[tiger fancini]

[Coltronator]

Yeah, Shinhan is the way to go for foreign use. They kind of need to do that kind of thing smoothly because of their deep connections with the Japan banking system.

[Smithington]

Here's the kicker. I was originally planning to depart Korea on Sunday, but a decent job offer appeared at the last minute so I cancelled the flight. So if I had departed Korea expecting my money to go into a given bank account then got an email from the co-teacher saying the names don't match up and hence the money can't be deposited - what the hell would they expect me to do? Fly back to Korea, stand in line at KB bank, fill out the forms, show my documents again, straighten things out, then jump back on a flight back to the States? "Sorry, but please understanding our special situation."

I suggested to my former co-teacher that she just inform Nonhyub to contact KB and confirm that they have identical copies on my passport and ARC on file. Surely they could figure this thing out. My signature will be identical, as will be my photo, passport number, alien number, etc. Instead of doing this my co-teacher sends me a contact number for English service at Nonghyub. I phoned it three times and each time got a Korean recording.

Can't say I'm looking forward to going into KB on Monday and trying to fix this myself. "Oh, the sorry. You can't have KB account and Nonghub account." or "You must close this account and open new account with correct name." or "Immigration will not allow you to change your name on account because..." or 'You must go to main branch in Seoul. Please the hurry. It closes in twenty minutes" or "____________". I don't see this going smoothly at all.

On another front, just last month I got some money back that I had loaned to a friend here in Korea. It was transferred to my account from my mate's account. When I updated my passbook it showed that the money had been transfered by "JOHN" (yes in large letters). That's all, nothing more. The money was sent by "JOHN". Thing is it's neither his first name or his surname, but rather his middle name. They opened his account under his middle name alone.

We're not exactly talking about Swiss bankers here.

[Who's Your Daddy?]

The real incompetents are your school not putting the money directly into the KB account.

I worked public schools for 8 years. Whenever I started a new school they told me they could only pay into Nongyeop. I just said no, the last school did it, and they caved. All I could figure is they want to save about twenty cents in interbank transfer fee.

[yodanole]

My Nong Hyup account was in my middle name for 18 years until I closed it a couple of years ago.

[SeoulNate]

[sligo]

[Young FRANKenstein]

[Underwaterbob]

Anecdotal evidence incoming!

I've been with Kookmin for 9 years now with nary a hitch. I've withdrawn money from my account here in Thailand, Canada and Italy no troubles. One school that I only worked at once a week did demand a Nonghyub account to pay for lunches, which I thought was hilarious. I ended up giving them a friend's account and just gave the man-won back to her once a month. It probably helps that my main school is a private-public school and not quite tied to the office of education rules as tightly as most public schools.

[PeteJB]

[Who's Your Daddy?]