by As the ‘photo card’ of K-pop idol groups has become the center of fandom culture, the number of foreigners who are being scammed trying to get a photo card of a desired member is also increasing. However, in the case of expatriates, the process of reporting to the Korean police was complicated, and many gave up.
Amugae Lee, a Chinese who graduated from college in Korea, told the on the 10th, “I am a fan of NCT and Seventeen, and I was scammed when I bought a photo card for both groups.” “I couldn’t report it to the police because there was no representative to report it,” he said. Usually, limited edition photo cards are traded for hundreds of thousands of won on SNS or used trading platforms such as Lightning Market and Carrot Market.
As the risk of being scammed increased, foreign fans wrote down the bank account number, name, and Twitter account of the person who stole the money, along with expressions such as ‘Korean scammer’ and ‘Scammer alert’ on Twitter. Post or share it. Some foreign fans living abroad gather victims from SNS and report them to the police through agents in Korea to respond to scams.
In fact, on the 29th of last month, the Seoul Eunpyeong Police Station arrested and sent a man in his 20s to the prosecution after receiving a deposit of nearly 300 million won for selling undisclosed photo cards of idol groups. Of the 49 victims, 14 were minors, and 22 were foreigners. It is said that the foreigners reported to the police through a Korean acquaintance. However, reporting to the domestic police is difficult for foreigners.
Even if an agent is sought, there are cases in which the police report fails because documents such as a ‘remittance statement’ to prove the damage are not issued.
At the end of last year, a college student in her early twenties, Amugae Kim, a photo card fraud victim, gathered five overseas victims on SNS but failed to report them. This is because the private remittance agencies that the victims used to send money to Korea did not issue proof of remittance.
An official from the investigation department at a police station in Seoul said, “If the remittance agency is overseas, report it to the local police, and if the agency is located in Korea, you can select an agent in Korea and report it.” You can also report the company for fraud or other charges,” he said.
