Korean Job Discussion Forums

[orosee]

To those of you who have a phone plan with monthly bills (not prepaid)...

Today I got a bill from SKT stating that I owe them 266,000 Won. Usually my bills are in the range of 100,000 Won, including 34,000 Won to pay off the installments on the phone.

The two unusual amounts were for (so it was translated for me) "Data" and "Community" whatever that is. Data at 150,000 and Community at 40,000.

Phone and text comes together at a meagre 3,500 Won, which is okay since my g/f was here the entire month so no long distance calls.

Upon calling SKT said there is nothing wrong with the bill but I willg et a 50,000 Won discount on my next bill... they must be in charity to do that!

All I have done that requires data transfer is to call up a link on Nate every morning that gives me the weather and time in form of an animated wallpaper. Maybe 15 or 20 times in that month. This goes over a bookmark that has installed itself in my phone's favourites folder.

I can hardly believe that they would charge me 7,000 Won each time for that, ot the 40kB of data that is transmitted. I cannot use any other internet based services because the whole stuff is in Korean and the menus are too small for my fingers anyway.

So question, is that normal? Has anyone experienced strange bills before, is SKT likely to make mistakes? I'll have them fax the detailed records today, maybe I see more then. Only that in 20 years I have never ever had a phone bill exceeding 100 USD (except for roaming which is covered by the company).

[bourquetheman]

I have heard (no joke) that Nate is extremely expensive so perhaps you've just proved that point. Next time use the internet on your computer or at work to check the weather. Seriously that Nate and June stuff I've heard is SUPER expensive.

[orosee]

Wow, that's what my Korean colleague used to tell me but I just would not believe him. I my mind that would have meant a charge of 5 to 7,000 won each time I got to that page

That said, there's nothing in Korea after six months that had me so disappointed as the telephones and telecom system! Lousy interfaces, castrated internet access, weird and wrong numbers displayed when making and receiving internaqtional calls (my g/f in Thailand sees me as a caller from the UK, sometimes India; I see her as a local call, a row of zeroes and sometimes her real number). Even the hardware is miserable and I have never purchased a mobile phone that I've hated as much as the Viewty I am still paying off. In Thailand I usually changed my phone every 1-2 years.

Still waiting for the call-by-call list but if Nate is that expensive, why don't they put a red flag warning page before every connection?

[wylies99]

Thanks for the warning.