::A Geek in Korea::

I have had NO success dealing with the bank on campus. The bank on campus was supposed to handle issuing me a security pass to prove I am affiliated with the university. This entire fiasco started last month when I had to hand over lots of personal information and a picture of myself for the card. I waited a half hour in line, submitted my information, and then waited for them to deliver the card to my house. They promptly lost the picture and told me about it weeks later when I was supposed to receive the card. I had to restart the application process again and submit a second photograph in December. They told me it was vital they got the picture before the end of the new year. I returned on my own time when I didn’t have classes on campus, waited another half hour to give them a picture as soon as possible. I left, expecting a card two weeks later to be delivered to my apartment.

A MONTH later, nearly two months after I was supposed to receive my card, I finally get a text message stating that my card was available to pick up during business hours at the bank. Business hours match, hour for hour, match my schedule. Every second they are open mirrors the time I am supposed to be in class for the length of my camps. Seeing as every class I am in requires my attendance, I was puzzled as to when I would be able to pick up this security card. I would have to luck out and have a class on my schedule I didn’t need to be present to teach.

Luckily in one of the three camps I taught at today I had a “movie day”. One other teacher was in the class with me watching Wall-E, which was a poor choice of movie for an English camp because the first hour of the movie has nearly no English at all. Since the students were engrossed in the movie, I stepped out and ran to the bank before it closed. It had a long line, again, so I waited thirty minutes and got my newly issued security card. It is also a bank issued credit card, but I’m not allowed to use it as such because foreigners are never trusted with credit in Korea without ridiculous oversight. The bank card has my photo printed on the card itself, as well as my name, and my university.

It also has my name written in Korean characters above my English name. They completely fucked up my Korean name. It’s not even close. My name sounds like I am a monster on a Japanese children show with fighting robots or something. The English characters are RIGHT THERE. My wife filled out the entire application form IN KOREAN. They simply are fucking with me at this point. If anyone checked my application they’d have to be a total moron to write the wrong name, because I triple checked my name before I submitted it.

I have more than a hunch that the person typing up the security cards mess with foreigners when they issue the staff. According to one of the coworkers in the office I work with, his name according to his card in Korean is “Bruce Lee”. Like, the guy with the one-inch punch Bruce Lee. This guy isn’t Korean. He doesn’t have a Korean sounding name. He didn’t submit a false name to make fun of the security procedure. They just made up the name for him, ignoring what he actually wrote.

Nice security procedures. Why even issue the card if the information on it isn’t correct? Can you imagine if a bank willingly was producing falsified documents that mattered? No one uses the ID for anything now, but trying to explain why the Korean name on my ID was wrong every time I would need to use it would be annoying. They will not offer a correct version, and I’ve been told not even to bother trying to get it fixed because it simply will not happen.

While it might be annoying to have my own name in Korean misspelled on the card, the worst thing is that THEY LOST MY OTHER PICTURE. If they are this lackadaisical about security, there is a small chance that my picture ended up on someone else’s security ID, or worse, credit card, by mistake. Identity fraud anyone? If someone stole my identity from that bank, they might even be able to get them to spell my fucking name right on their card. Even people that make fraudulent accounts spell people’s names correctly when they put them on cards, right?

Deep seated incompetency and utter lack of security seem to be a theme with Korea. It’s the same with their poorly designed web applications. It just drives me crazy.