![[기고]Fraud at academy-type agencies requires discussion to fill legal gaps](https://img.newspim.com/news/2024/11/01/2411011602402370.jpg "[기고]Fraud at academy-type agencies requires discussion to fill legal gaps")
Two months ago, when I was reviewing a contract at the request of an educational welfare center where I served as a mentor, I was so shocked that I decided to come forward and resolve the issue together.
The contract was an academy-type planning contract that required a lump sum payment of 8 million won, and in order to fulfill the youth’s dream of becoming an entertainer, which has recently become popular through K-culture, it requested fees for acting, singing, and dance instruction, as well as a stage debut. It was closer to a service use agreement rather than an exclusive contract. It was a very systematic contract with the contract period and services to be provided clearly visible.
However, there were pitfalls throughout the contract. It did not specify what stage the debut would be on, and the time and place for acting, singing, and dance instruction were unclear.
In addition, there was a provision that the agency could not go to another agency during the exclusive period, giving the impression that it was an exclusive contract, but it did not specify who the responsible teacher was or who the agent’s manager was.
In particular, when looking at the preventive aspect of the contract’s dispute resolution, there was no content related to dispute resolution, and it did not specify who to complain to and resolve the dispute when there were various contractual complaints.
However, a handsome part-time college student who followed a 13-year-old fifth-grade girl home from school just in time for her to leave school, persistently asked for her school’s grade level, address, and phone number, and asked Blackpink’s Lisa (a Thai native who became a successful member of a Korean girl group). He said he could become like a female student.
A 5th grade elementary school girl had recently visited her maternal family in the Philippines. She was going through a period of adolescence and anger when she felt angry for no reason because she thought her mother was responsible for making her a second-class citizen in Korea. She was worried about her appearance. Contacting a part-time job, a handsome college student whom I admired, became a refreshing refreshment to my life.
Recently, I impulsively went out with my mother’s living expenses card and bought expensive shoes and clothes, but I couldn’t get a refund because the tag had already been removed. When the educational worker mentor asked ‘Why did you do that?’ about this problem, I said ‘I will punish my mother. “I want to give it to you,” he said, saying that he hated having a mother who was born in the Philippines, strongly denying his roots, and shedding tears.
Her mother came to Korea after marrying a Korean man from the Philippines who had come to serve as a missionary, but they soon divorced due to the man’s affair, and her mother was left to raise the child. She was not receiving proper child support from the Korean man, and she did not speak Korean. I wasn’t good at it at all.
The mother, who couldn’t resist her daughter’s anger, was dragged in and signed the contract, even though she was an adult, not only did she not fully understand the meaning of the contract, but she also had little power to repay. As a welfare worker, she received a rotating job and was barely raising her daughter. This was proven by the fact that he was not good at Korean, so he was one of those people that even social workers who were weak in foreign languages avoided.
However, the documents she signed after listening to her daughter were a contract for an academy-type agency and a loan document for 8 million won. In the end, the mother and daughter, who were released after paying a lump sum of 8 million won, received a contract in front of me two months later.
When I looked into the agency, I found that they were recruiting people through various job search sites, and most of them were hiring good-looking college students and graduate students as part-time workers.
Perhaps they were in charge of bringing in students who were not proficient in Korean from elementary schools or foreign schools as subjects of the contract. After many twists and turns, this matter will eventually be filed for litigation. It ended with the Education and Welfare Center making a strong statement that they would not remain silent and receiving a promise to refund a portion of the amount, 4 million won.
Since I was involved in receiving the promise, I did not investigate whether the refund was implemented afterward. The amount they deducted was 1.2 million won for the profile photo (nowadays, there are cell phone cameras, so isn’t this amount ridiculous?) and 800,000 won for the management fee for standing on the market stage (looking at the supporting photos of the stage, it was no different from busking) ), the amount was less the 2 million won that had been paid for several dance lessons over the weekend (which was equivalent to acting lessons for part-time college students), and the daughter and mother were greatly hurt by this incident.
While having a meal with some social workers from a multicultural welfare center where I had recently worked as an auditor, I listened to the stories of Korean language instructors and women who had recently come to Korea through marriage to study Korean. I realized that there were more scams by these academy-type agencies than I thought. It has been done.
When I asked why these problems were not captured in statistics and said that social workers had an obligation to inform them, social workers said that there was no legal basis for conducting a full survey (I checked and found that there were none), they were not captured in national statistics, and they did not report on multicultural families. I learned that there are more concentrated crimes than I thought.
Additionally, I learned that verification was not easy due to my lack of Korean.
So, when I was giving human rights education at the Multicultural Family Support Center in the past, I was finally able to truly understand the meaning of their wish: ‘I want to know just one good Korean woman.’
They wanted to have just one kind person (aka ‘good Korean sister’) who would tell them how to take legal action in Korean society when such difficult problems arise.
There may be side effects such as the reality of the ‘good Korean sister’ that you accidentally acquire becoming a forceful being in the name of religion, or excessive control of your life after becoming close as the same parent, causing difficulties, but they can still obtain the information necessary for our society. I felt the importance of being a ‘good Korean sister’ in real life.
Through this incident, I found out that about 5 notorious agencies were doing the same business while changing their names. For teenagers who get all their information from digital, when I went to the entertainment agency’s website bulletin board, there were articles introducing famous movies and music groups posted. People with digital literacy could recognize that it was a news article, but those without digital literacy could tell that it was a news article. People who lacked or lacked Korean language skills could easily misunderstand that it was a movie or music group produced directly by the company.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism requires entertainment agencies to register (it is only a registration for fact-finding purposes and does not provide management or supervision) and is diligently creating standard contracts.
You can check the information, status, changes, and suspension/closure information of entertainment agencies through the Korea Creative Content Agency (‘Registered Company Search’), and the entertainment agencies in question were all registered companies. Due to these reports, the entertainment agencies were Unless a duplicate report is filed as an academy business, the Consumer Dispute Resolution Standards, which are guidelines of the Fair Trade Commission, do not apply, so the refund standards for consumers do not apply.
The academy-type agency was using the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s standard contract, although not exactly the same, but in significant adaptation. However, standard contracts only present industry standards and are not enforced. Looking at the true face of K-culture, which uses youth trainees as victims of the cultural industry, I feel sorry for the point where humans and their desires meet, and for the existence of people who can only use their knowledge in this way.
※ Professor Park Jeong-in worked at a public institution after receiving his doctorate in law, and later served as the director of the Haein Art Law Research Institute, a visiting professor at the Department of Cultural Administration at Sookmyung Women’s University, and a research professor at Dankook University’s IT Law Collaborative Program. He served as a member of the main committee of the President’s National Intellectual Property Committee, a deliberation member of the Copyright Protection Deliberation Committee of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, a standing member of the Public Opinion Concentration Survey Committee of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, a deliberation member of the Public Official Ethics Committee, a copyright inspector of the Ministry of Education, and a cybercrime instructor of the National Police Agency. We have dealt with issues such as intellectual property, industrial security, and defense technology strategies, including copyright law, industrial security law, and science and technology law. In addition, he is a social worker who works in various civil solidarity, disabled people’s solidarity, youth welfare, and housing welfare, and is also a civic activist who provides historical and cultural commentary for citizens and protects cultural properties. Recently, he has written a series of sports law books, serves as the chairman of the Softball Association for the Developmentally Disabled, and is also working to develop sports for the disabled.
How can legal protections for consumers be improved to prevent scams in the education sector?
1. Can you tell me more about the issue of academy-type agencies targeting multicultural families in Korea, and what specific types of scams are prevalent?
2. How has the lack of legal protection for consumers in this industry created an environment conducive to such scams?
3. What steps can be taken to better protect multicultural families from falling victim to these types of scams?
4. What role do you think digital literacy plays in preventing individuals from falling prey to these types of scams?
5. Can you provide any specific examples of recent cases where families have been taken advantage of by academy-type agencies, and what was the outcome of those cases?
