Field note 04 · 현장 수첩
Korea Shipping Scams — 4 Patterns That Start After "It Shipped"
Most scam advice ends at "verify the seller before you pay." Good advice — but a working scam doesn't stop when your money lands. "It shipped" is where act two starts. Four patterns cover almost everything I see between Korea and a buyer's door, and each one breaks against a specific check.
1. The tracking number that only works on one website
The seller sends a tracking link. It works — package "in transit," then "held," maybe a live-chat agent standing by. The catch: it only works on that site, because the "courier" is a website the scammer built. Look-alike domains, cheap endings like .top or .shop, a fee request right on the tracking page. The break: never use the link you were given. Type the carrier's address yourself — for real shipments from Korea that's usually Korea Post EMS (ems.epost.go.kr, English available) or a name you already know. If the official site says "not found," there is no parcel. And no real courier collects payment through its tracking page.
2. "Held at customs — pay the release fee"
Days after "shipping," a message: the package is stuck at customs, pay a clearance fee — to a personal bank account, a gift card, or crypto — or it gets returned. Here's how real customs works: import duty is assessed by your country's customs office and collected by the carrier or your postal service, with official paperwork, usually at delivery. No customs agency on earth collects through someone's personal account, and none of them open the conversation in a chat app. Honest note: real import duties exist — you may genuinely owe your government tax on arrival. The difference is who's asking, and where the money goes.
3. The tracking number that's real — just not yours
Nastier variant: the number is genuine. It tracks a real parcel moving through real scans — addressed to someone else. Tracking flips to "delivered," the seller points at it, and you're the one who looks wrong. Sibling trick: the box really comes to you, with a brick where the goods should be. The break: "delivered" is not "delivered to you." Check the delivery city and postal code against your own; your local carrier can confirm whether that number matches your address. A mismatch makes your payment dispute strong even with "delivered" on screen — PayPal gives you 180 days. For anything expensive, film the unboxing before you break the tape.
4. The fee that's always the last one
An "insurance certificate." A "refundable deposit." An "anti-money-laundering certificate." "Storage fees, growing daily." Each one urgent, each one final, each one refundable later. Those certificates do not exist — no customs or bank issues them. This pattern rides on romance stories ("a soldier stationed in Korea is sending you a box") but shows up in plain merchandise deals too. Understand why the fees escalate instead of stopping: every payment you make tells the other side you'll make another. The only winning move is the boring one — stop at the first fee nobody mentioned before you paid.
All four patterns share a weakness: they die earlier, against a seller you verified before paying — that's field note 01 and 02. And when a deal is already mid-flight, the strongest checks — the seller, the parcel, the paperwork — stand inside Korea.
If a package from Korea has you cornered — one email, one answer back.