Filling out the form and being unable to pay the fee

So you want to go to South Korea so bad, you booked your flight, and your hotels and all your activities are thoroughly planned out. The time has come to get all your important travel documents in order.

You’ve requested your passport and received it, so all that’s left is your K-ETA application to be able to enter the Republic of (South) Korea, apart from Corona stuff, which we’re not going to talk about. You go to the K-ETA website, which loads very slowly, and with passport in hand and a scan of your photo on your computer, you start filling out the form.

Finally, you get to the last step, which is paying 10300KRW (or about €7.98) for the administration fee. The only way you can pay, is by credit card. You get out your Mastercard, or Visa, whatever you fancy, and start entering your credit card details. After agreeing to some stuff you have no idea what they’re asking, you submit and then…

… you land on an error page saying that some error has occurred, with no more info than that to go on. 🤔

So you try again, and thank God, the system remembered your passport and email combination, so you don’t have to re-enter all this data again. You click proceed to payment, fill out your credit card details again, and submit. Expecting it to go through now, though, you land yet again on the same error.

A little disappointed 😞 you think in yourself: probably something wrong with the website, I’ll try again tomorrow. The next day, you try the entire process all over, and yet again, you guessed it, you land on the same error.

If you’re having this problem, you’re probably a European citizen with a credit card issued by a European bank. Let me tell you something… These cards don’t work. They have some sort of extra security feature that can make it difficult for you if you try to use your card outside the EU.

The Embassy of South Korea

If you’re still reading this, you’re either in the same predicament, or you’re just curious on how I solved this. And the little subtitle above already spoils it for you.

Here’s what you need to….

1- Find the Embassy of South Korea closest to your area. For me, it was the Embassy of South Korea in Brussels. To be fair, I think any citizen in the EU can use this Embassy, it doesn’t really matter that much as an EU citizen, and it’s not like you need to actually go there. But if you have your own, perhaps contact them instead of the one in Brussels.

2- Find the email address on their contact page

3- Email them, asking them to pay the fee for you. Include the K-ETA registration number, your passport number, and your name. They will reply saying that they have paid the fee for you and that you need to transfer the outstanding amount to their EU-bank account.

4- Transfer the money and that’s it. You’re done.

5- Wait for the K-ETA confirmation by email.

Conclusion

Well, that was my experience in requesting a K-ETA, and boy, was I a little frustrated by their website, but in the end it all worked out, and I got my confirmation by email the next day saying that I was accepted and allowed to travel, and thankfully so, because I already booked my flight and hotels.

To end this post, if you’re having the same problem as I did on the K-ETA website, don’t contact the support line on K-ETA, they don’t know what’s going on either. I spent days sending mails to their support, to the support of my bank and the support of Worldline, but they couldn’t do anything and didn’t know why the payments failed. The only confirmation that I had from Worldline was that the payments were blocked because of “unsecured transactions”, probably because of the EU strict security laws and regulations on credit cards. It’s best to contact the Embassy.

One final thing, while in South Korea, expect your cards to fail. But that’s another story for another day.

Goodbye 😉