Korean Job Discussion Forums

[maxxx_power]

Today I was told by my new employer that the Korean Health Insurance people said that I would have to pay for all the months I have been in Korea in order to get health coverage.

This is news to me as I paid my boss 40k/month at my last hogwan for this coverage! Turns out the mother fucker was pocketing the money and never paid a dime into my health coverage.

I have photocopies of my pay statements showing the deduction and bank records to that tune.

What is my legal recourse? Can I take him to court or some government agency to try and recover the money?

This amounts to roughly 700,000 Won that I would have to pay to gain coverage.

I want to ruin this asshole for all the shit he pulled, can it be done?

Thanks

[Seoul Skye]

Were you given a medical insurance booklet or card? If not, you were never formally enrolled and you are out of luck. There's really nothing much you can do except appeal to the new owner to pressure the old owner to make it right. A long shot to be sure.

FYI - Always ask for the aforementioned booklet/card. Your employer will need your alien registration number to enroll you in the National Health Insurance Corporation's plan.

The following is from the NIH web site.
http://www.nhic.or.kr/wbe/wbec/2003/01/15/208,373,4,0,0.html


What is the National Health Insurance?

We, the National Health Insurance Corporation(NHIC), are the only public insurer managing the National Health Insurance under the supervision of the Ministry of Health & Welfare, the Republic of Korea. The insured of NHI can be categorized into the employee insured and the self-employed insured. The NHI is the system of which the contributions made by the insured persons are consolidated into a fund and insurance benefits are provided upon their need. The system aims to share the burden among the insured persons and provide medical services.


Conditions for Enrollment

Those who have registered as foreigners at the Immigration Bureau and meet one of the following conditions can make apply for the enrollment of national health insurance at the NHIC

For the employee insured :
those who are the employers or the employees of work places;

For the self-employed insured :
those who excluded from the employee insured and have one of following residence status : F-2, F-4, D-1-9, E-1-5, E-7-8, F-1(spouses and children of Korean nationals) and those who are the spouses and children under 20 years of age of foreigners.


Enrollment procedures and required documents

For the employee insured : The foreign workers shall make an application for the enrollment to the employer of the work place who are responsible for remitting the application at our office with the required documents. The enrollment is retroactive to the date he/she employed.
For the self-employed insured : The foreigner shall make an application for the enrollment with the certificate of foreigner registration and the passport at the nearest NHIC office in his/her residential area. The enrollment is retroactive to the date he/she registered his residence in Korea.


Imposition of contributions and payment

The employee insured
The Contribution amount shall be calculated by a monthly salary contribution rate and be deducted from the monthly salary (50% of which are paid by the emlpoyer). The duty of the payment is retroactive to the date he/she was employed

The self-employed insured

The Contribution amount for those who have income shall be calculated by monthly income contribution rate, and for those who have no income shall be the amount of the; Average monthly contributions of the self-employed in preceding year. The duty of the payment is retroactive to the date he/she registered his/her residence in Korea.
For the foreign Student 30% of the contribution can be reduced and the contributions shall be paid in advance in the unit of three months. However, the foreigners who have residence status F-1 and F-2 shall pay the contributions amount calculated by the same imposition standard of Korean nationals on monthly base.


Insurance Benefits

The benefit package for foreigner is as same as that for Korean nationals. When the insured person and the dependents, no matter what they are foreigners or Korean nationals, get health care service at the health care facilities, they have to pay only amount as follows;
For treatment at the hospitals and medical clinics:
..20% - 50% of the total charges applicable by NHI

For prescription drugs filled at the pharmacy :
..30% of the total charges applicable by NHI


For more information, please visit web site(www.nhic.or.kr) or dial (02)3270-9386 to NHIC.

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

Sounds to me like the guy stole around 700,000 KRW from you. He pocketed your money which you were paying for health insurance. That's called theft. And there is something you can do about it.

Go to the police and file a formal complaint for theft. You have the documentation to show he was allegedly deducting the money from your salary. He failed to remit it to the proper agency.

It's one thing to fail to follow proper administrative procedures. It's another to commit a criminal act, i.e., theft. The cops should understand this. If they don't, explain it to them.

Your complaint may or may not get too far, but it will probably cause him a lot of grief. Sounds like he deserves it. If one police officer or station is not interested in doing anything, try another officer or station. If you're really lucky, you may find a cop who doesn't like him. Now wouldn't that be too bad?

Let your ex-boss know exactly what you are doing.

It's the love, bro. It's the love. Can you feel it?

Good luck.

[maxxx_power]

The police idea sounds great, first I'm writing the labor board to see if they can mediate this situation.

I'm trying to contact my old employer but he has been AWOL for quite some time, and has a habit of not answering his phone.

I've also contacted every other teacher that worked at that school I know, hopefully we can all make a bigass dent in his wallet at the least.

Thanks for the tips, It was indeed theft after all.

[gajackson1]

Maxx, I'll say the same thing you've heard me say before to anyone else who has been in any kind of similar rip-off situation:

If you are only interested in your money, then photocopy your docs, keep the others in a SECURE place (like uploaded into an e-mail server as scans), and go to ur old boss, all smiles and venom.

Tell him to cough up what he owes you, no BS, or you WILL turn everything over to the appropriate authorities.

If you are interested in justice, you can just turn him in, knowing you will get the money when the hammer drops, minus the cuts of whoever is involved. (Also figure your ex-boss is not above weaselly tactics/bribes to keep this from happening).

If you are interested in revenge, then blackmail him as in A above, and then hammer him as in B.

That would be a Donkey~esque approach, and you'd better be ready to deal with an ex-boss bent on making your life misery . . .

Regards,

Glen