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Imagine taking a job to teach at a school in Korea. You’re there on a work Visa, and the school is not only supposed to pay you, but they’re also supposed to pay your rent.

What would you do if they stopped paying your rent, and they didn’t pay your full paycheck?

In this story, one man’s girlfriend was in this exact situation, and he did everything he could to help her including contacting a Korean friend of his who happens to be a lawyer and happens to hate it when Korean schools don’t pay international teachers since it gives the teachers a bad impression of Korea.

He agreed to help for free, and it’s glorious!

Keep reading for the whole story.

Don’t pay on time? Alright lets play that game.

My SO worked at a private school in S. Korea also known as a Hagwon. Hagwon teach all kinds of subjects and this particular one taught English, they would hire native English teachers from around the world to come to Korea and teach English.

Although I have never taught English in Korea I’m been in Korea long enough to be VERY familiar with the laws, practices, and heard numerous horror stories.

I also am good friends with a Korean who is a lawyer that specializes in business disputes.

The owner at this school actually sounds like a really good guy.

So I met my girlfriend, she was on her 2nd contract in Korea at a new school as the first school she worked at the owner retired and shut it all down.

That was actually a pretty positive experience.

He always paid on time, when he informed everyone he was shutting down the school he’d of course pay out everything agreed upon in the contracts but also any unused vacation time, sick time, plus he would double that years bonus as thank you.

My girlfriend told him in her contract she had a free flight home at end of contract but didn’t plan on using it, so the owner of her 1st school told her that’s fine he’ll just pay her an extra $1,000 as that is what the flight would cost anyway.

He saw some red flags at his girlfriend’s next job.

So my girlfriend found a 2nd school to work at after her 1st school shut down (due to retirement of the owner). However her second school had some warning signs that I was concerned about…

3 foreign teachers, all are on their 1st year contracts. Typically if a school is a good you’ll get a few teachers who are willing to sign onto 2nd, 3rd, etc year contracts. Not the case, which I felt was odd especially for a school that had been around for years.

The school had a pretty low student population count, just under 100. I’ve always heard you want about 50 students per teacher for cash flow/etc reasons unless your a high end school

Also apparently payday was supposed to be between the 10th and 15th…they said “in case of holiday or weekend”

O well not my business (this was still very early in our relationship)

Uh-oh!

2 months into our relationship my girlfriend is annoyed.

I find out that her school has only paid half her salary and will be paying the other half in one week.

This was a massive red sign to me.

I gave my girlfriend advice what to do at this point, she ignored me and said “They are just having a little cash flow issue some students haven’t paid on time”

OK whatever

The owners don’t seem to be hurting for money.

2 months later we get invited to a dinner hosted by the owners a Husband & Wife. I got off work early and headed on over…red sign number 2.

Both Husband and wife drove very nice, very nice cars. The wife had a Tesla and the husband had a very nice BMW 5 series.

Off we go to dinner

I get to dinner, my goal is learn as much about my girlfriend’s school owners as possible so I jump into pleasant conversation. More red signs to follow

So many red flags!

They have 3 kids, 2 young ones and 1 older one, the 2 young one attends numerous hagwons for various things (this is expensive) and their oldest is attending college in America (also expensive)

They live in the rich part of the town, in a very large apartment…which I was able to find out is financed (AKA high payments)

They are about to start a new marketing campaign to get more students, as numerous students have dropped out lately, they know they don’t have the student population to maintain what they need to maintain

Red signs are going off in my head like this place is heading straight for the freaking cliff and everyone needs to jump ship now. Not enough students, owners have a ton of bills, they won’t be staying in business long.

Again not really my place to say anything at this point but I took a mental note.

This is getting bad.

Next month girlfriend pay is late again, lets just say she kept telling me to mind my own business each time I tried to give her advice.

This went on like this for 3 months. And finally, she went an entire month without getting her full salary, she got about a 1/3…

Final red sign…

Girlfriend comes over to a letter on her door of her apartment for eviction

He’s finally able to give his girlfriend advice.

You see in Korea its common for the school to pay the rent, and provide housing. Apparently they haven’t been paying rent.

Girlfriend is mad, she’s broke, and about to become homeless the time for action is now…remember when I said I knew what to do?

Pro Revenge starts here

I had her check her national pension, tax records, and health care information. All of which are legal requirements for her to maintain her VISA. Even though her school hasn’t paid those things for months…she’s required to pay them.

He did everything he could to help her out.

I’m fuming mad, this school is royally messing over my girlfriend and that’s not cool.

My girlfriend is distraught cause she’s a very prideful woman that now has to ask her boyfriend thats me for help.

I pull into the savings and and pay up all her requirements and setup regular monthly payments to ensure that even if her school doesn’t pay (which they haven’t) she can maintain her VISA. I then ask her a favor…I want to sit down with her co-teachers.

Experience has taught me, she’s not the only one getting messed over.

He gives the teachers some advice.

However do you know what the beautiful thing about this is? You see the Korean Govt is sick and tired of schools bringing over foreign teachers and messing them over.

In the past those teachers who have gotten messed up have gone crawling to their respective embassies often times homeless, penniless, with no where to turn because their employer didn’t have the resources to meet their contractual obligations and many schools were getting shut down especially on the 3rd compliant 🙂

I tell all her co-teachers to keep going to work (they have too to maintain their VISAs) and I would get back with them in a day or so.

I also am good friends with a Korean who is a lawyer that specializes in business disputes.

Remember that part?

They’re not going to sue.

This lawyer and I go way back, I’ve known him for a better part of a decade. He helped me navigate my divorce, I gave him a couch to sleep on when he was going through his divorce, I once loaned him money (he paid me back) and we both really liked helping each other out.

Now I’ll spoil the fun for you, no this lawyer (my friend) is not going be suing the school…but…

So I called up my friend and said hey “I wanna go drink some soju and talk to you about something and maybe hit you up for a favor”

He goes “Sure thing”

He knows exactly what he wants.

We go to our favorite BBQ place, start pounding back the soju as I explain to him the situation.

He’s getting madder, and madder. He’s upset because he feels like this is giving those foreigners a bad view on his country and he hates Koreans that make Korea look bad.

And I ask him to help file claims with the labor board. With the goal of

• Getting them paid
• Getting them a letter of release (so they can switch to D10 VISAs and find a better school (or leave Korea altogether if they choose)
• Getting the school shut down

Here’s why he wants his friend’s help.

Now my friend wouldn’t be suing the school as a Govt appointed lawyer would be, since this is a labor board issue he really doesn’t need to do much.

However when a Korean lawyer who specializes in business law calls the labor board to file a compliant about a breach of contract with a English teacher against a hagwon that carries more weight then if the teacher goes through it by themselves.

Also I feel like it helps the communication and eliminated potential language disputes. This would be compounded by the fact if each of those teachers filled separate cases, against the same school a few days apart.

He agrees to help

They get started.

Strike 1

Girlfriend goes up first, my friend sits down with her collects what evidence she has, calls the labor board. Compliant 1 filled….BAM

Girlfriend goes to school her BOSS IS MAD! Her boss approaches her and asks “How can you betray me?”

My girlfriend said “pay me my money”

Boss asks “how can you do this?”

Girlfriend said she smiled and said “This is just the start”

They keep going.

Strike 2

Strike 1 is still underway with the labor board coming down the necks of the Hagwon owners demanding payment, demanding to know my girlfriend hasn’t been paid.

Friend calls the labor board, same case manager he files case number 2 against the school.

Now the owners want to negotiate.

next day my girlfriend and Strike 2 teacher is called into a meeting with her owner and husband. They want to work out a payment plan and give them a letter of release.

Girlfriend says “full payment in full of all money owed PLUS bonus for completion of contract pro-rated for months completed or no deal”

The owner tells her that’s not possible.

Girlfriend said that’s fine full payment or no deal.

The lawyer doesn’t want the teachers to negotiate.

Strike 2.5

My friend finds out what the Hagwon owners tried to do, he advises my girlfriend and her co-teachers if that happens again do not engage in any negotiations hand them his business card over and tell them if they have a settlement offer they can call their lawyer…he gives business cards to all teachers.

Strike 3

Bam, wham, open a can of worms folks we are here!

Three strikes, and this is getting very serious.

Co-teacher 3 goes to my friend, he calls the labor board, guess what? Same case manager has gotten 3 VALID labor disputes over breach of contract from the same school all in a matter of 2 weeks.

This school is now not only a liability to its employees, but the Korean govt.

The Hits Land

Labor board apparently called the school, demands that all salaries, pension payments, taxes, health insurance premiums, and RENT will be paid IN FULL within 10 days or the education license and business license will be revoked and the schools assets will be seized & sold to pay the teachers what they are due, in addition creditors/etc who are also very likely owed money will be paid.

Left hook lands

Now, the owners are pretty desperate to negotiate.

My girlfriend said the next day at school was crazy, the owners were freaking the heck out. Their entire lives was falling apart, they had a govt lawyer so far up their butt they couldn’t even sit down.

Thats when the owners decided they would pull all the teachers into a meeting and work out a settlement.

Keep in mind at this point the school owed approx $20,000 in back wages, health care premiums, pension payments, and future liabilities on top of whatever rent was due for all their apartments (which by this point were all under separate eviction proceedings)

The owners offered each one of them $1,500 in cash that day if they would be willing to drop the labor dispute…

Each one of the teachers pulled out my friends business card and said “Any settlement offers should be made to my lawyer” (I so wish I could have seen this happen)

The owners seem pretty shocked.

The owners grab the business cards, look at the teachers and go “You have a Korean lawyer?”

They answer “yes”

“You all have the same lawyer?”

They answer “yes” (Can you imagine, have 3 separate legal issues from 3 separate people, and finding out the same lawyer is representing each individual suing you? How that must feel…)

The teachers were not willing to negotiate.

“Will you take the 1.5 now and we work out a payment plan?”

They all say “Talk to my lawyer” at the same time

They leave the meeting, that night all 4 of us partied they all felt like complete rock stars. Their owners now knew how truly messed up they were.

We had a pretty good party that night, the end was near.

The owners wanted to keep the school open.

The owners dodge a bullet…for now

The labor board was really, really, really, really, mad.

According to my friend who was following up with the labor board the process to resolve this was being fast tracked…and the labor board was deadly serious about shutting this school down if they couldn’t pay by the deadline.

Apparently the owners were trying to secure a loan to pay the teachers and keep the teachers employed and the school open.

At least they were paying something.

They filled for extensions, and got some more time.

They did pay out partial salaries which helped the teachers get by day by day.

By this point my girlfriend had already been evicted and was living with me and I was supporting her.

She was loaning her partial payments to her co-teachers who didn’t have the same support.

This is odd.

Sir it is time to drop Fat Boy

It was a Thursday, my girlfriend had just arrived at work (yes she was still legally required to work at a school that wasn’t paying her) when shortly after she started a bunch of Koreans arrived in suits posted up notices.

15 minutes go by and one of the Korean men in a suit steps inside of the classroom, introduces himself and says all the students are going be getting bused home for today.

All the kids are loaded onto the buses and each one given a notice to give to their parents.

My girlfriend is instructed to wait until all the students are gone.

Sounds like the kids aren’t coming back to this school.

Process takes about an hour, and then my girlfriend is told she is to go home and the labor board will contact her for the next step.

They step outside their is a moving van…with a few Korean men waiting around…my girlfriend calls my friend the lawyer who calls the labor board.

The school has been foreclosed on, their assets are going be seized and sold and my the teachers will paid out of the proceeds of the sale.

If the school doesn’t have enough assets to cover the salaries, payments/etc the Govt will seize any assets of the owners to pay…the teachers now had a judgement and the courts are going collect and pay out on it.

Finally, the teachers got paid!

The Dust Settles

2 months later, one of the co-teachers opted to fly home my girlfriend and the co-teacher that decided to stay in Korea found much better schools to work at, and my friend calls me all excited and told me he just got off the phone with the labor board, enough business and personal assets have been seized and sold to pay all the teachers what they are due, each teacher will have $300 deducted for the lawyer fees (not for him, he did this all for free) but for the Govt lawyer who handled the case behind the scenes.

Also the owners have been permanently barred from ever opening a business, and the Education board had barred the owners from operating in any school setting again.

No idea what happened to the owners after this, but life goes on.

My girlfriend and I took a nice vacation on her back pay, and put the rest in the bank. It felt good to win.

Wow! Remind me to never take a teaching job in Korea, not that I’m a teacher or have any plans to teach. I know that’s not what I should be taking from this story, but that school situation certainly sounds like a true nightmare. I’m glad OP and his lawyer friend helped his girlfriend and all of the teachers at that school out.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

This person shares what they found amazing.

Another person thinks OP and his girlfriend both sound like great people.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who got the perfect revenge after being told he can’t work from home.

Someone who taught English in Korea weighs in.

Here’s some praise for the lawyer.

The lawyer was the true hero of the story. He helped for free when he wouldn’t have had to help at all. And, he sure did help. The teachers got everything they were owed in the end. Bravo!