YouTuber Sucking Sunday exposes swindlers on the streets of Seoul

[cosmicdaze.livejournal.com]

YouTuber Sucking Sunday has taken to exposing swindlers in Seoul that go after Koreans and foreigners alike to try and get money for their religious cults. He has no problem being loud and bringing attention to the situations he stumbles upon and detests these swindlers for taking advantage of people and painting Korea(ns) in a bad light.

English subtitles available if you click CC!

In this video you can see the host interacting with a foreigner that had been talking to the swindlers.

This video shows how he talks to the swindler to show how they talk to people and then eventually tell them they need to pay.



source: Sucking Sunday on YouTube

I'll be visiting Korea again for the second time in a few weeks and the first video randomly popped up on my recommended videos on YouTube and I got sucked into this series. Is there a similar scam in your country, Omonians? And for those of you who have been to/live in Seoul, how big of a problem really are these people? Totally not doing this to paint Koreans in a bad light, I just thought this guy's investigative journalism methods were funny, lol. Something similar happened to me on a college campus here in the US and I immediately knew something was up as soon as they brought up god and wanting to get to know more people in the area.

Comments

[premonitioner.livejournal.com]

i got caught by scammers like these in Hongdae! they claimed to be promoting Korean culture and offered me a traditional Korean experience, and I was like 'lol sure why not'. Got to wear a hanbok and eat Korean food for free, which i took advantage of bc i was broke lmao.

then they tried to 'say a prayer for me' and said they'd need family information to do so, but they were asking for the kind of thing you'd need to steal identities. so I gave them a mixture of old addresses, wrong birthdays and misspelled names. they then tried to get me to 'open up' about my 'pain' bc I said I didn't want a boyfriend and they were like, suggesting that I'd had trauma to do with men. i've no more trauma than the average woman, i'm just gay and didn't fancy coming out to total strangers in Korea lmao.

i got their katalks but they deleted their profiles the next day. guess they didn't want to talk to a girl who made up information lmao.

[chimpansee.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's this same scam per se but me and my friend were definitely approached by scammers while in Korea. Some guy was a student and he came up to us asking whether we wanted to experience real Korean culture and hanbok or smth and we were like ???? so we simply said nah we're on our way to Shinsegae and he became really insistent that Shinsegae was something we could do anytime and that his thing was much more special but we just wanted to shop so we were still like nah thanks lmao.

This happened in Myeongdong I believe. Everything about it felt weird, I remember thinking he was someone who wanted to sell us a Korean culture package experience or smth but he didn't have leaflets or a sign with him nor did he mention any prices so I found it all very strange.

That video was recommended to me as well and the way those scammer people talk is so freaky, it surprises me that anyone would go along to them. I live for them being exposed though.

[violoncelliste.livejournal.com]

THESE PEOPLE ARE EVERYWHERE, I'm so tired of them. I've met them in Gwangju, Daegu, Busan and Seoul.

They are so creepy and annoying. They always approach me and my friend cause for some reason most of them speak english very well and when they see white girls they assume we're christian (which we are not)

when we were approached by one of them in Daegu a police officer actually came over and told her to fuck off. At least they're not aggressive, but they make me so uncomfortable :/

[glokmusic.livejournal.com]

not korea but i’m living in japan and they are over here too! i got approached by one last night about some buddhist sect and i was just like “i’m busy” and eventually let us go

they act really friendly but then end up being really pushy and they only talk to foreigners, since japanese people know they’re a cult

[juhli.livejournal.com]

I dont think i got approached by these "korean culture"-scammers, but there were two older ladies who were like "you're so pretty" etc, which i ofc fell for because I'm a sucker for compliments lol. We chatted and they asked for my email adress so I gave them my throwaway email adress and sometimes get a newsletter from them...i think it's some kind of church...

[hillando.livejournal.com]

I can never tell whether they genuinely want to spread the word of Christ or are swindlers here lmao there are some crazy church cults as well to add to the mix

I've been approached by church ahjummas and some random people asking for donations to elderly homes, and I always just kinda say I'm not religious so not interested in church (they usually leave me alone after that), or I give them a tiny donation of max 5,000won (5USD) to get them out of my hair. I usually try to get out of the conversation as fast as possible, so I don't know much about these swindlers....

but yeah his approach is entertaining, I just hope he won't get into trouble for defamation or something

[juhli.livejournal.com]

In such situations, when i tell someone to stop filming me, are they allowed to keep filming me?
At the end of the first video, they should have deescalated the situation earlier...

[dropit87.livejournal.com]

That's crazy. Wen I was last in Chicago a guy walked up to my friend in a McDonald's and goes "that's a nice purse, do you have some money I can have?" Like first of all back off, second her purse was from TJ Max lol. She was like "nope" Like that's bold af

[nefertitii.livejournal.com]

I was approached twice by those scammers in seoul. Once by two girls and once by a younger girl and older woman and they all wanted the same thing. to show me authentic korean culture. The first time it happened I had no idea what it was because the two girls just asked to be shown to where a specific shop was so I took them and then they kept talking and asking me what I know about korean culture and if I can come with them to participate. They wouldn't take no for an answer but I persisted.
I read later that theyre part of a christian cult. Creepy shit.

The second time the old lady said "wow youre so pretty!" and attempted the scam but I was in a hurry and brushed them off.

[dior-chic.livejournal.com]

I live in Chicago and yea I know that experience all too well lol. People would ask me to buy them food and at first I wanted to oblige and help them out, but I quickly noticed they wanted pretty expensive meals and no one was really saying thank you so my generosity ran thin

[crowleyd545.livejournal.com]

this is interestingly funny. I have like 14 cousins in Korea and one of them left home to join a cult years back. I wonder if this is similar to one that she joined. she left the cult a couple of years ago and now lives at home.

[megustaelmoney.livejournal.com]

this is always the first thing I read about when it comes to safety in Korea. it's crazy, I've never seen anything like this anywhere else in the world

[the3rdjester.livejournal.com]

It has happened to me once some years ago while I was walking through one of the busiest shopping streets of Athens, so my memory is kinda fuzzy.
I remember being approached by two girls, either Japanese or Korean, that spoke to me in English about some kind of religion. I said I was not interested, they were kinda persistent, but in the end they left me alone.
I didn't think much of it then, because I was younger and not as suspicious as I am now, but this post reminded me of the specific encounter I had and made me think how odd it was that some foreigners were preaching about some religion(cult?) in my country.
Anyways, I've never had another encounter of this kind and I'm relieved. Cults make my skin crawl.

[petecarl.livejournal.com]

Idk. Depends upon your country's privacy laws, and if something is being filmed for profit or counts as news/a documentary.

In the US, where I am, pretty much anything going on in public spaces can be legally photographed.

[mjspice.livejournal.com]

Wow wtf? This is so scary.

[juhli.livejournal.com]

I don't think it existed at this scale 5 years ago...seems like it really got big the last 2-3 years.... or maybe that's when foreigners started sharing their experiences with it...

[juhli.livejournal.com]

I see..I see...I thought that people had to give you permission for you to upload it...but i guess everything goes when the faces are censored...

[cosmicdaze.livejournal.com]

I first went to Korea three years ago and I went to the popular areas in Seoul and Busan and nobody approached me trying to scam me so I wonder if maybe I was just lucky or if like you said it only got big pretty recently. I asked a Korean friend about this and she said every time she goes to Seoul someone tries to scam her like this.

[juhli.livejournal.com]

I think Sunday is doing a good thing with making noise about it on the streets and shaming them in public...seems like the authorities can't do much judging by HOW many people have experiences with it. Another thing that was surprising to me is that it's not just SEOUL that is so hugely affected, but other cities as well o.o

[ostsiberia.livejournal.com]

"I'm an exorcist who ousts swindlers"

LOL this guy is a hero