Saturday, May 04, 2019

dealing with Korean Customs

Introversion and laziness are a deadly combination. When I ordered some antacid tablets from GMarket in late March, I got a message on April 2 saying that my shipment was being held in ROK Customs because the order hadn't included my alien-registration card's ID number. I stalled and stalled, not wanting to deal with Customs functionaries. Days stretched into weeks, and weeks became a month. Finally, on May 2, I tried calling Customs to see about resolving the issue. When the lady picked up, I could hear her clearly, and she sounded irritated. But she apparently couldn't hear me, so we spent fifteen seconds bellowing, "Hello? Hello? HELLO?" at each other before she finally sighed and hung up. I tried calling her again right away... and the bitch simply picked up and hung up on me, as if I were a prank caller! So I waited a day, then called again on May 3 (Friday, i.e., yesterday). This time, I got through to a much nicer, perkier lady who could hear me, and who was willing to help. I recited my ID number over the phone; she told me the shipment would arrive next week; I thanked her, and that was that. I had prolonged the delay by waiting as long as I did to make that brief call, but the first lady's bitchiness had been utterly unnecessary. Anyway, my antacid tabs ought to be arriving in a few days. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.



2 comments:

Charles said...

I remember the ordeal I went through to get my personal customs ID when that system was first implemented. Now, for foreigners, all they apparently need is your birth date (not even the whole ARC number--or, at least, that is the case with Amazon). Kind of pisses me off when I think back to what I went through.

These days, they will generally send you a kakao asking you to make sure that all your information is in order--did you not get anything like that?

Kevin Kim said...

Yeah. As I wrote above, I got a message (via text) on April 2 telling me my stuff was being held until I provided my ARC number. I think I may have misread the message at first, thinking they were asking for some sort of "Customs number" that I didn't have. Upon rereading, though, I saw they were asking for the 주민등록증 번호. The lady also asked me for the 송장 번호, which was referenced in the text message from Customs.