Haba Playschool Seocho in Seoul
habaseocho1@korea.com
www.ihps.co.kr
2F Donga Villart, 1678-1 seocho dong, seocho gu, Seoul
"I finished working 2 weeks before the end of my contract as my brother was getting married back in the UK. Before I decided this I sat down with the Principal, Director and Supervisor to discuss it. This was about 2 months before I was leaving. I didn’t want to lose out on my severance pay so I wasn’t going to leave early unless I would still get it. They agreed they would pro-rate my severance and I would get 11 months worth. Before I changed my flight I asked about 5 times, just to be sure we all understood each other.
Two weeks before I leave I start asking when I’m going to get all my money. I was leaving Korea and moving to China so I needed it all sorted before I left. I was put off and put off with “yes he (Mr Jung) is thinking about how to do it.”
As I’m about to leave on the afternoon before my last day I’m called in for a meeting and knew what was coming when I saw my contract out on the table covered in yellow highlighter.
I wasn’t finishing my contract so they refused to give me a penny of severance pay and they weren’t obligated to pay for my flight home so they were going to take the money out of my final paycheck.
He also said that I had never paid my 300,000won housing deposit and refused to give me that money back. I showed him my bank book proving I had but he wasn’t having any of it.
Conveniently they had no recollection of any of our previous conversations concerning these matters and denied ever having told me it was okay. They were well aware that I had a new job in China and had to go back to the Uk to sort the visa and didnt have the extra month to fight them for the money.
The Labour board also said there was nothing they could do as it was only a verbal contract and technically I broke my contract.
Looking back I should have gotten it in writing but had no previous reason to think they would screw me over like that. They had been trying to get me to re-sign so maybe it was payback for not doing so. Or just a quick way to save some money.
Dont trust them!"
_________________________________________________________
Inspector McHammered of the Lard in Pamplona, Spain
