Field note 05 · 현장 수첩

Is That Korean Shop Real? — 4 Official Registries You Can Check From Abroad

From the operator of 해결사, a fixer service in Korea. Free to use, no email required.

Every legitimate Korean online business leaves a paper trail — in government registries that are public, free, and readable from any country. No Korean phone number, no ID, no login. Most foreign buyers never look, because nobody told them where the paper lives. Here's where it lives.

0. Start in the footer — the numbers the law makes them print

Korean e-commerce law requires an online seller to display, on the site itself, its registered business name (상호), representative's name (대표자), address, a 10-digit business registration number (사업자등록번호), and an e-commerce registration number (통신판매업 신고번호). Real Korean shops print all of this in the footer, because the fine for not doing it is real. A "Korean" shop with no numbers in its footer has failed the check before you've run one. If the numbers are there — copy the 10-digit one. It drives the next two steps.

1. The FTC seller registry — is this shop on file, and is it alive?

The Korea Fair Trade Commission runs a public register of every mail-order and online seller — ftc.go.kr, 통신판매사업자 등록현황. Paste the business number or the Korean shop name. The result shows the registered name, the representative, the registered domain, and an operating status: 정상영업 (normal), 휴업 (suspended), 폐업 (closed), 직권말소 (struck off by the authority). Two things to read: the status — anything but 정상영업 on a shop taking orders today is your answer — and the domain column. The domain on file should be the site you're looking at. A footer number borrowed from some other real company fails right here. The page is Korean-only; your browser's translate function is enough.

2. The tax office cross-check — does the number itself still breathe?

Same 10-digit number, second registry: the National Tax Service's Hometax status lookup tells you, without any login, whether a business registration is 계속사업자 (active), 휴업자 (suspended), or 폐업자 (closed). A shop happily "selling" on a number the tax office lists as closed is a walking contradiction — walk away. Honest note: Korean government sites can be moody from foreign networks. If Hometax won't load where you are, don't fight it — step 1 already showed you the operating status from a second source.

3. Domain age — does the calendar match the story?

Shops lie in words; registries lie less. For a .kr or .co.kr domain, KISA's whois.kr (English mode available) shows the registration date. For .com and everything else, lookup.icann.org does the same. Now compare the date with the story the shop tells. "Trusted since 2015" over a domain registered five weeks ago is a mismatch somebody needs to explain. To be fair about it: a young domain alone isn't a verdict — real businesses rebrand and launch new lines. It's not the age that convicts; it's the age contradicting the shop's own claims.

4. The escrow mark — click it and watch the address bar

When a shop asks you to pay before it ships — the classic bank transfer — Korean law makes that seller offer a purchase-safety service — escrow or equivalent — and legitimate shops wear the badge in the footer: 구매안전서비스 or 에스크로. Here's the test scammers fail: click the badge. A real one opens a confirmation page hosted on the bank's or payment company's own domain — the address bar shows kbstar.com, tosspayments.com, inicis.com, somebody who isn't the shop — displaying that shop's registered name and business number. A fake one is a dead image, or a popup that never leaves the scammer's own domain. Two honest caveats: card payments are exempt from this rule (cards carry their own dispute channels), and big marketplaces like Naver or Coupang build escrow in — individual badges matter most on standalone shops asking for bank transfers.