Someone offers money to borrow my Korean bank account. Is it legal?

No. Handing over your bank account, debit card, passbook, OTP device or banking login so that someone else can use it is itself an offence under Korean electronic finance law (전자금융거래법), whether you are paid for it or only promised a job. If the account is then used to receive scam money, which is what these accounts are usually wanted for, you can be investigated for helping commit fraud, sued by the victims, and have your stay in Korea reviewed. The money offered is small compared with any one of those outcomes.

How do these offers usually reach foreigners?

The request rarely says "sell your account". It usually looks like one of these:

• A part-time job. "Receive company payments into your account and send them on", or "withdraw cash and hand it to our staff". The pay is high for very little work.
• Leaving Korea. As your visa ends, a broker offers to buy your account, card and phone line, because "you won't need them anymore".
• A loan offer. "We need your card to build a transaction record so the loan gets approved."
• Remittance help. "Let us run money through your account; it saves on fees when you send money home."
• A friend or co-worker who "only needs it for a few days".

Accounts and SIM cards held by foreign residents are attractive to scam groups because the holder often leaves Korea, which makes the trail harder to follow. That is exactly why the risk lands on you if the account is used while you are still here.

What crime is it?

There are two layers.

Lending or selling the account itself. The electronic finance law forbids transferring, lending or renting out an access medium (접근매체), such as your card, OTP or login, for another person's use. This applies even if no scam money ever passes through.

Helping the fraud. When phishing money lands in your account, police look at whether you assisted the scammers. Helping another person commit a crime is punished as aiding (방조), at a lower level than the main offender. If you went further and withdrew or transferred the victims' money yourself, you may be treated as one of the people who committed the fraud together, not as a helper. The deciding question is what you knew. "I thought it was a real job" works as a defence only if the facts support it: a believable employer, an ordinary wage, and no instruction to hide anything.

Can the victims make me pay?

Potentially, yes. Under the Civil Act a person who causes loss by an unlawful act must compensate it, and someone who aids that act is treated as a joint wrongdoer. Joint wrongdoers are liable together, so a victim can claim the whole loss from any one of them. In practice the organisers vanish, and the account holder is the one with a name and an address. Defending a lawsuit in a Korean court, in a language you may not read well, while your visa period runs, is a heavy burden even when the final amount is reduced.

What happens to my bank account?

Once a victim reports, the bank stops payments on the account, and you lose access to everything in it, including your own salary. Under the special law on telecommunications fraud (전기통신금융사기 피해 방지 및 피해금 환급에 관한 특별법), a person whose account was used in fraud can also face limits on electronic banking and on opening new accounts for a period. For a foreign worker who is paid by transfer and sends money home, that alone can cause serious trouble.

How can it affect my visa?

The Immigration Act sets out when a foreigner can be removed or lose permission to stay. Three provisions matter here:

• A person sentenced to imprisonment (금고 이상의 형) and then released is a ground for deportation (강제퇴거).
• A stay permit can be cancelled when a breach of the law is serious, and cancellation is followed by an order to leave (출국명령).
• A person likely to harm the economic or social order can be refused entry in future.

Even a fine that does not reach any of these can come up when you apply to extend or change your visa, because your record is part of the review. How much weight it carries depends on the case, but it rarely helps.

I already handed over my account. What now?

1. Call the bank and suspend the account and card yourself before a victim's report does it. Ask for new access details and a new password. 2. Do not touch money from strangers that arrives in the account. Do not withdraw it, forward it or spend it, however much the "employer" insists. 3. Preserve how you were approached: the job advert, chat logs, the person's name and number, any contract or ID they showed you. 4. Go to the police yourself with that material. Coming forward early with records makes "I was deceived" far more credible than waiting to be summoned. 5. Get advice before the police interview if you have already withdrawn or transferred money for them, and ask for an interpreter for the statement.

Next step

If you are leaving Korea, close your bank accounts and cancel your phone line in person before you fly, rather than leaving them open for someone else to use. If an account in your name has been frozen or the police have contacted you, talk to a lawyer before you give a statement. Consultations are paid; when you contact us, a staff member will call you back and explain the fee.

법무법인 대한중앙
1533-7377

Rules applied

Criminal Act (형법) Article 347 (fraud), Article 30 (joint principals), Article 32 (aiding, with a reduced penalty). Civil Act (민법) Article 750 (liability for loss caused by an unlawful act), Article 760(1) and (3) (joint wrongdoers are jointly liable; a person who aids is treated as one). Immigration Act (출입국관리법) Article 46(1)13 (deportation after a sentence of imprisonment or heavier), Article 89(1)5 (cancellation of permits for a serious breach of law), Article 68(1)3 (order to leave after cancellation), Article 11(1)4 (entry ban for likely harm to economic or social order). Named without article: 전자금융거래법 (ban on transferring or lending access media), 전기통신금융사기 피해 방지 및 피해금 환급에 관한 특별법.

This is general information, not legal advice. Every case is different.