This is a rant. You may wish to skip it, unless you want to see yet another example of a ranting, furious foreign who was offended by a widely accepted practice in Korea.
I’m pissed off.
Hub of Asia?
My bleeding ass.
Bleeding because I sat on it, wasting over two hours this week, to find out that white professors with a salary are less trustworthy than unemployed Korean students. Of course, if you’re willing to make a TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR deposit, or have a Korean guarantor (I imagine, even an unemployed Korean student will do), then you can be trusted with a credit card. Maybe.
On the basis of their absolutely pathetic service in the past, I should have known that Woori Bank wouldn’t give it to me, but they said they would. They accepted my application for one. They told me it was coming.
Oh, it’s a cheque card. You can’t use it online. Or in another country. Only in Korea.
Why the #(&$! would I want a card I can only use in Korea? What possible use could that be to me, when sending money is already cheap and easy to do within the country?
And what the #(&$! is the point of letting me think I was getting a credit card when I wasn’t getting one at all?
Okay, unfair. Some companies aren’t like that. Samsung, LG… I’m told those companies will take my money, they don’t think of me as a shady character on the basis of race. So now I have to start the process again.
Argh!
UPDATE: Okay, I’m back from fuming, and thought about it some more. There’s more to it than I originally statedwhich boils down to simply this: it is impossible that such a monetarily insular country actually become a financial hub of its region. It cannot happen. If they won’t even accept foreign credit cards here, if they’re going to be that protectionist about moneyto the point of avoiding paying money to any other country or bank outside the countrythey’re not going to be a hub.