This is basically a scam which I am not sure how the Korean government stops people from being stupid and wasting away money like this?:
Ahn Jae-sung married Natasha, an Uzbek woman, in 2007 through a matchmaking agency. He now works full-time counseling Korean men at the International Marriage Victims’ Center, which he founded in 2010. [PARK SANG-MOON]Choi Eun-suck was lonely. The 39-year-old administrator at a high school in Seoul wanted to get married but women weren’t impressed by his job. In early 2014, Choi turned to a matchmaking agency that specialized in international marriages. It showed him a computer profile of an eligible girl. She seemed both sweet and sophisticated.
Within weeks, Choi was at Incheon International Airport holding his passport and a round-trip ticket to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. His father warned him not to be hasty.
He should have listened. Choi met the woman whose profile he liked. She was 13 years younger than him. A few days later, he showed for a ceremony that was supposed to seal their betrothal.
It turned out to be his wedding. Before he knew it, Choi was a married man.
Choi returned home in late April 2014 to start the legal procedure to bring his wife to Korea. In June, she called to say she had been raped by a taxi driver and was pregnant. She didn’t know who the father was: Choi or the rapist.
In March 2015, Choi’s wife changed her story. She knew who the father of the baby was – and it wasn’t Choi. She had never been raped. She wanted a divorce.
Choi tried to have the marriage annulled but failed. He is now legally divorced, which puts him in a bad place in terms of getting remarried in Korea, where divorce is still stigmatized.
“People tell me to marry a Korean woman next time,” says Choi, “but no Korean family will approve of me. They’ll assume that my ex-wife divorced me because I physically abused her.”
And he feels cheated. The Kyrgyzstani woman was never sincere and Choi paid his matchmakers 23 million won ($20,079), which doesn’t include the money he sent his wife every month for a year. He believes he’s owed the matchmaking fee back. He is awaiting a final appeal in the case. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but someone has actually started a International Marriage Victims’ Center to counsel and provide support to people burned by international marriages in Korea.
A friend of my wife was chatting with a potential “Russian Bride.” She, of course, needed just a little bit of money. He got suspicious, so she sent him a pic of “her passport.”
My daughter took a single glance, and said “Photoshop.” I looked up the passport ID no. on Google, the template was there with a chimp’s face where the girl’s face was supposed to be. He sent the monkey pic back, asking her to explain. She vanished.
Luckily, he was only out a few hundred dollars rather than the tens of thousands so many of these guys lose.
Tyson
7 years ago
Guys, about half of the arranged marriages between Korean males with foreign females turned out to be sham marriages by either the marriage agencies or the immigrant wives who were just using the men to get into the country (to work, to live, or to shack up with their boyfriends from their own countries who were already in Korea). The number of abandoned Korean men who forked over huge money for these women are astronomical, and they have been ignored by the Korean/International media. The problem was so bad, that in 2013, South Korean government had to get involved and require minimum standards for both the Korean men and the foreign women. The men had to have a clean criminal/mental stability record with minimum set wage, while the women had to be able to speak basic child-level Korean for communication (to weed out women who were using these marriages for a quick buck). The new rules have worked somewhat, as the problems reported have gone down significantly. But it still is not a 100% guarantee that there will be no problems with these types of marriages where men are buying women as their wives.
guitard
7 years ago
“He is now legally divorced, which puts him in a bad place in terms of getting remarried in Korea, where divorce is still stigmatized.”
While there used to be a stigma attached to divorce, the divorce rate in Korea has skyrocketed in the last 10-15 years. It’s just not a big deal anymore and it’s become quite normal for divorced people to remarry.
ChickenHead
7 years ago
Does any mail order/broker/internet bride story ever end in anything but tragedy?
Does anyone know of a successful experience?
Sidenote: I’m pretty tight with a gaggle of Filipina broker-brides who are now divorced but living as single moms in Korea. They aren’t what one might expect if only aware of the juicy scene.
They are all English teachers (so they say), very fashionable, proudly spend money easily, rather smart, very low self-esteem, honest about money and not running scams, sleeping with every young white (or black, in some cases) western English teacher they can, lost in life, chronically depressed, feel they have no future, trapped in Korea, etc.
I’m not sure who is to blame for their divorces… but my feeling is the guys were bigger losers in Korea than the girls were in the Philippines… and the cultural difference combined with jealousy and control issues drove irreparable wedges through the relationships.
![Ahn Jae-sung married Natasha, an Uzbek woman, in 2007 through a matchmaking agency. He now works full-time counseling Korean men at the International Marriage Victims’ Center, which he founded in 2010. [PARK SANG-MOON]](https://i0.wp.com/pds.joins.com/jmnet/koreajoongangdaily/_data/photo/2016/11/13202946.jpg?resize=610%2C442)
A friend of my wife was chatting with a potential “Russian Bride.” She, of course, needed just a little bit of money. He got suspicious, so she sent him a pic of “her passport.”
My daughter took a single glance, and said “Photoshop.” I looked up the passport ID no. on Google, the template was there with a chimp’s face where the girl’s face was supposed to be. He sent the monkey pic back, asking her to explain. She vanished.
Luckily, he was only out a few hundred dollars rather than the tens of thousands so many of these guys lose.
Guys, about half of the arranged marriages between Korean males with foreign females turned out to be sham marriages by either the marriage agencies or the immigrant wives who were just using the men to get into the country (to work, to live, or to shack up with their boyfriends from their own countries who were already in Korea). The number of abandoned Korean men who forked over huge money for these women are astronomical, and they have been ignored by the Korean/International media. The problem was so bad, that in 2013, South Korean government had to get involved and require minimum standards for both the Korean men and the foreign women. The men had to have a clean criminal/mental stability record with minimum set wage, while the women had to be able to speak basic child-level Korean for communication (to weed out women who were using these marriages for a quick buck). The new rules have worked somewhat, as the problems reported have gone down significantly. But it still is not a 100% guarantee that there will be no problems with these types of marriages where men are buying women as their wives.
“He is now legally divorced, which puts him in a bad place in terms of getting remarried in Korea, where divorce is still stigmatized.”
While there used to be a stigma attached to divorce, the divorce rate in Korea has skyrocketed in the last 10-15 years. It’s just not a big deal anymore and it’s become quite normal for divorced people to remarry.
Does any mail order/broker/internet bride story ever end in anything but tragedy?
Does anyone know of a successful experience?
Sidenote: I’m pretty tight with a gaggle of Filipina broker-brides who are now divorced but living as single moms in Korea. They aren’t what one might expect if only aware of the juicy scene.
They are all English teachers (so they say), very fashionable, proudly spend money easily, rather smart, very low self-esteem, honest about money and not running scams, sleeping with every young white (or black, in some cases) western English teacher they can, lost in life, chronically depressed, feel they have no future, trapped in Korea, etc.
I’m not sure who is to blame for their divorces… but my feeling is the guys were bigger losers in Korea than the girls were in the Philippines… and the cultural difference combined with jealousy and control issues drove irreparable wedges through the relationships.
Can a Bar double as a Halfway House?