Be Cautious of Deceptive Immigration Consulting Agencies

<Current Status>
An increasing number of people are falling victim to fraudulent and deceptive immigration consulting services, raising consumer cautions. For example, consumers who have signed contracts on immigration supporting service with consulting agencies often face delay in or abrupt discontinuation of immigration procedures, and, sometimes, have to come back to Korea after staying a while in receiving states.

< The No. of Consumer Complaints related to Immigration Consulting Service>

<Type of Damages>
Among the causes of 45 consumer damages reported to the Korea Consumer Agency between Jan and Aug this year, delay in immigration procedures accounted for 57.8%(26cases), followed by discontinuation of immigration procedures, changes in contract terms, and lack of qualifications. 

<Causes of Consumer Damages>
1) Because consumers do not know much about immigration procedures, they tend to depend too much upon immigration consulting firms. In particular, many of them are not good at English and, due to the language problem, they do not have sufficient ability to collect immigration-related information, which makes them vulnerable to deceptive and fraudulent acts of those immigration supporting agencies.

2) Because many of those who want to immigrate to other countries are in urgent situation, immigration consulting companies take advantage of this situation (time constraint). For example, consulting companies promise to complete all the necessary procedures for immigration within a certain period of time, or to help people immigrate to English-speaking countries even though their English is not good enough. However, these agencies often fail to keep their promises and cause damages to consumers.

<Consumer Cautions>

1. Get the sufficient information about the receiving state or immigration procedures from relevant authorities including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, if you are planning to immigrate to another country.

2. Make a thorough plan after immigration, learning lessons from experiences of other immigrants

3. When using an immigration consulting agency, record all the verbal promises in written form so that you can present them as evidence when problem occurs later on.

4. Under the current Emigration Act, every immigration consulting firm needs to be registered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade and insured by over 300million won worth of Guarantee Insurance. Therefore, if your agency does not perform the contract or if the business is shut down, contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade to get your money back from the Insurance, or you can call the Korea Consumer Agency for counseling. Internet access to the Agency for online counseling is also available. 

Sep 12, 2007 [Consumer Dispute Settlement Department II]