Korean Job Discussion Forums

[the ireland]

The girl in the shop was really nice and helpful as was the guy in there with her too. It was the LG shop. She showed me a few phones, I was looking for something cheap enough, she showed me some pretty nice ones.

when I asked the cost she said sam, so I asked if it was sam man won or sam ship man won and she said sam man won. She seemed to be trying to tell me that I would receive a monthly bill for the phone over a one year period and I could just go into her shop and pay it.

So if the phone really is forty thousand won, and it is bill for the year, what would i be expected to pay per monthconsidering last time out when I got a phone I only ever put credit into it whenever the time limit was up and the phone company would prevent it from ringing and I would have to go top it up again.

[vaticanhotline]

I pay 15,000 won a month for my phone, and I got it more or less exactly the same way you went about getting one. They take the money out of my banks account. The line rental is 13,000 a month, but calls and texts muct be dirt cheap considering how much I use it.

[Troglodyte]

It sounds like you're getting a prepaid account. Is that right?

If so, I'm surprised if they are giving you a new phone for 40,000 Won. Seems pretty cheap. Even a second hand phone will be more than that. And I don't think they usually give out free/discounted phones with prepaid accounts. I think they are paid for upfront. But for 40,000 Won, you might as well just pay for it up front instead of the hassle of making monthly payments of a couple thousand Won.

Good news though. If you have prepaid, when your credit runs out you can still receive calls. You just can't call out or send texts.

If you're NOT getting a prepaid account, then it's like the last poster said, they take the payment directly from your bank account each month. How much? It depends on what plan you got (how many free minutes) and how much to talk over the limit.

[the ireland]

[the ireland]

[Troglodyte]

My phone is a prepaid. I've always had prepaid accounts. If you aren't going to be calling anyone, then by all means get a prepaid account. With the prepaid, you can just charge it once with a couple thousand Won and you can receive calls for life (well, there is a limit but I think it's at least 6 months). If you ever do need to make a call on it, if the outgoing calls have been blocked because the time limit expired, then you can always reactive it by putting another couple Won on it. I'm not sure but I THINK that you don't lose the old credit if your outgoing call period has expired. Definitely if you keep recharging it within the outgoing period you can keep accumulating the credit.

The period for expiring outgoing calls is 15 days for 5000 Won and 30 days for 10,000 Won. It might increase to more than 3 days per 1000 Won at higher amounts of credit but I've never done it. But someone at the cell phone store was trying to explain it to me and i got that impression (my Korean isn't so good).

If you aren't going to use the phone much, then why not just get a second hand phone? You can pick one up in Itaewon for about 40,000 or 50,000 Won. If you ask around in your town, you can probably find a few stores that have some second hand prepaid phones for sale (especially if it's the main offices that register new accounts or do after-service). I think that you can easily find one for 50,000 if you look around. If you go to the main offices in your town, you can definitely get one.


Concerning monthly plans. They are always for AT LEAST 12 months. You can break the contract before the 12 months, but then there are penalties. The biggest of which is that you have to pay them the full price of the phone (which otherwise would have been subsidised by your monthly plan).

[the ireland]

[Troglodyte]

What city are you in? Are you near to Seoul? If so, pop in to Itaewon and ask at one of the phone shops near the subway exit. They can give you the complete low-down on the offers available. I think that for prepaid there's only one offer, but they could tell you all the details of it.

If you can get a good looking phone for 60,000 Won, that's probably a good deal. I'd go for it also. You could get one for a little bit less, but it's probably not worth the extra time looking around to save 10,000Won.

If the people at the store where you're buying it can speak some English (or you speak some Korean) try to get them to explain where in the city you can by pre-paid cards to recharge your credit. They don't seem to be common to buy anymore. Now everyone takes their phone into a special shop (not all shops can do it) and recharge some credit there. BUT i found out recently that some shops DO still sell the prepaid cards. Good if you happen to be in town and really need to reactivate outgoing calls for some reason. Depending on how long the card is valid for (check the expiry date) you could always keep it on you and just use it when you need to make a late night call and can't find a pay phone.

[Mongoos150]

I have an unlocked blackberry (Bold 9700) that I'm planning on bringing over, and had planned on simply buying a pre-paid SIM for text/calls/web browsing. Sounds like it's not as simple and straight forward as it is in Europe...

[AsiaESLbound]

Good news, sam man won is 30,000; not 40,000. How much you pay per month? I will tell you when I manage to get my phone. I too went looking, but was told I need a Korean ID card just for a prepaid. There's a prepaid phone/food Asia Mart geared towards Asian foreigner blue collar workers in my town and the Korean shopkeeper speaks English.

[vaticanhotline]

[themagicbean]

You're on a contract. The common cell contract here is a very low base rate (12-18k) and then something like 20 won a minute or text.

I got about the same deal last year on a phone. For a 1-year contract I got a 40k won phone, new (basic phone, obviously). Expect some startup surcharges your first couple of months, though. (Not big, 20-30k.)

[Mongoos150]

[the ireland]

[the ireland]