We sacrified our whole Saturday afternoon to get a freaking cell phone for me. Here's some advice for all foreigners living in Korea to save you all the trouble we had to go through:1. Bring your alien registration card and your bank book.
They indeed still use bank books in Korea. I think bank books were abolished in Switzerland more than 15 years ago already. I cannot remember having a bank book since I was a teenager!
2. Get a cell phone that is 2G, not 3G.
3G phones cannot be used outside Korea.
3. Sign up with KTF.
With SK Telecom, there is an entry fee of 200'000 won that needs to be paid upfront (which is paid back when the subscription ends, but nevertheless it should be considered), and variable rates are more expensive than with other providers.
For LG you need to be resident in Korea for at least 1 year.
KTF has the best mobile network coverage and low variable rates.
4. Let the sales clerk change the phone settings to English before you leave.
Otherwise you might spend hours to click through all the Korean hieroglyphics till you find where the language settings are.
3 comments:
NO!! SK TELECOM is definitely better! network coverage much higher! no just kidding I worked for the company that's why. but I guess that with prepaid phones you don't have to pay that much upfront..
anyway how is Korean going?
This information is consistent with what I have come to find. But what one Korean cell phone stand told me is, if you can get a Korean to co-sign on the phone it is MUCH cheaper. No 200,000W deposit etc... so if you are a teacher you may get someone at the school to sign or help you. But obviously they do not have to do this for you, so... I'm going to get my phone and I am taking a Korean co-worker with me to sort everything out.
Hope this helps someone.
LG telecom is a terrible service provider. They charge really high rates without letting you know ahead of time. They charged me 1.1 million won, about $1,000 for 2 months of services and about $800 for the last one and a half months. Those were backed up fees that they never mentioned about so I was getting regular monthly fees and calling international, without realizing the huge bills that wre piling up until months later. They didn’t bill me for the international stuff until I’d been here for 5 months. And even when I significantly lowered my calling, especially overseas, they still charged me the $800 for calls I never made and services I never used. Their excuse was that they haev to use SK Telecom’s overseas services so they come at a higher rate because they still want to make a commission off of it. If that wasn’t enough, the sky phone that came with it falls apart easily, the vibration is really loud and long, and the ring tones are extremely irritating. I don’t recommend their products at all. I am cancelling my service tomorrow.
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