The One With Aldacron

Once upon a time, foreginers were not allowed to purchase mobile phones (or ‘handphones’ as they are known here) in Korea without hassle. Each telco handled it differently. I’ve heard several horror stories. One woman said she was required to put up a deposit of $100 and get a Korean citizen to sponsor her. Many expats opted for an easy way out. Some picked up phones in the name of their Korean girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse. That’s what I did with my first two phones. They were both in my wife’s name. Others went for Prepaid Service Phones. That’s what I did when my wife’s credit went south a couple of years back.

PPS phones are horribly inconvenient. The first obstacle is getting your account charged. There are two ways to do so: by buying a prepaid card and charging the phone yourself or by getting someone at a telco agent’s office to do it for you via the telco’s computer network. My PPS experience was with SK Telecom. For some reason (which no one has yet been able to explain to me), you can only charge your account manually via a prepaid card between the hours of 8 am and 10 pm. So if your account balance runs out after 10 pm, any extra cards you have are useless until the next morning. The SK agents are also a problem. Not all of them carry the prepaid cards. Not all of them can (or will) charge your account for you over the network. The ones that can do so are also restricted by time - they can’t do it after 7 pm. I discovered all of this one night when I visited the 6 SK agent offices that are located in my neighborhood (yes, 6 of them all within 2 blocks of each other). Five of them neither had the prepaid cards nor could charge my account for me. The 6th didn’t have the cards, but could charge my account. It was my misfortune to get to them at 7:10 pm, so they couldn’t charge it until they opened at 10 am the next day.

Once you get past the fact that charging your PPS mobile is going to be an exercise in patience, you then have more to stomach. The rates for PPS calls are insanely expensive compared to normal rates. Regular mobile phone rates are between 15 and 18 won (roughly about US 2 cents) per 10 seconds. PPS calls are charged 60 won (about US 6 cents) per 10 seconds. So a US$10 PPS card gives you about 30 minutes of call time. But if you have caller ID enabled, you give up about 2 cents per month to pay for it. Now, regular mobile accounts have to pay a base monthly fee, which is usually between US$12-14 per month depending upon the telco. So theoretically, if you make few calls on the PPS then it comes out to be cheaper. If you use your phone a lot though, PPS gets more expensive fast.

So you accept the hassle of charging your account and you accept that the rates are ridiculous. Sorry, not done yet. Now you have to deal with card expiration dates. In order to prevent fraud and abuse, the telcos limit the time within which the charge on a card can be used. Once a card number is entered (either by you or an agent via the network), the amount added to your balance is only valid for 30 days. At the end of that time period, any amount remaining is lost. Gone for good. So even if you only buy US$10 cards and never make phone calls - only receive them, that ten bucks only allows you to use the phone for 30 days. Once the card expires, you can’t even receive calls and have to buy a new one. So the reality is that even if you do make few calls on your PPS phone, it only works out to be cheaper than normal service if you don’t make more than 30 minutes worth of calls per month - and then it’s only a couple of dollars cheaper - because the remaining balance doesn’t carry over to the next month.

There are other card options. For example, there are prepaid cards put out by third party services which are primarily intended to be used for overseas calls. Dial a toll-free number, input the card number + cell phone number, and you have a charged account. You must first dial the toll-free number every time you make a call using that account. The rates are much cheaper than the standard PPS cards. One US$10 card will last 2 hours compared to the measily 30 minutes the standard PPS cards gives you. Furthermore, these third party cards are valid for 180 days after activation. So what I would do is buy a $10 PPS card from SK each month to keep my phone activated and allow me to use Caller ID. Then I would keep my third party account charged and use it to make calls. Still inconvenient, but cheaper than relying on SK PPS cards alone.

Things have changed for the better now. Though there are still restrictions, it is possible for foreigners to purchase normal cell phones with normal accounts now. Each telco handles it differently and has different restrictions. For example, I was told that SK has no restrictions at all as long as you have a valid resident ID. But LG telecom, on the other hand, has a few restrictions, as I found out when I bought my newest phone.

First, they had to verify that my resident ID was of a category they can accept. My visa comes from being married to a Korean, so apparently that category is acceptable (I’m not sure what categories LG rejects). I’m not sure what limitations KTF (Korea Telecom) has on this front, but I was told that SK will accept you even if you have no resident ID but do have a Korean-issued credit card. Second, they wouldn’t let me pay for the phone in installments, where the amount is prorated over several months and tacked on to the phone bill each month. I was told SK allows that with just the ID, but KTF (Korea Telecom) only allows it if you have a Korean-issued credit card. So I had to pay for the phone up front (on my Korean-issued credit card - not sure if that’s a requirement by LG as I showed it along with my resident ID). Then I had to choose to either pay cash each month or have the bill automatically charged to my card. I chose the former, as I don’t like having variable amounts being charged to my card each month. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really a choice as the agent learned that LG requires foreigners to use the charge option. SK has no such requirements, and I’m not sure about KTF. Luckily, the agent went to bat for me and made several phone calls over the course of about 30 minutes. The end result was that I was allowed to take the cash option.

So if you are in Korea and on the market for a cell phone, SK is the most hassle-free telco to go with. As long as you have a resident ID or a Korean-issued credit card they will treat you just like a Korean citizen. LG and KTF both have restrictions and requirements that I am not altogether clear on. If you have no resident ID, it is still possible to get a regular account with SK (not sure about the others) providing you make a $200 deposit (that’s what the agent told me) and pay for the phone up front. There may be more restrictions, but I didn’t investigate them. I wound up using LG simply because the particular phone I wanted was an LG Telecom phone. If the agent had not gotten me the deal with the phone bill, I would have gotten a different model and gone with SK instead.

If you do have any telco experiences as a foreigner in Korea, I’d love to hear them.