Someone in Korea filed a fraud complaint against me over a secondhand sale after I left — I'm back in Australia. Is this serious, and can I fix it from here?

A dispute over whether a used camera worked is a civil matter; a complaint alleging you took payment and sent a defective item knowing it was defective is a fraud allegation, and Korean police must open a file on it. The police contacting your friend means they have found your last registered address empty and are trying to locate you — which is routine, and which also means the case is heading toward the status that matters for your return: suspended, with your name flagged. It is fixable from Australia, for a case this size, in weeks. Left alone, it is the kind of small file that turns into a detention at Incheon next year.

What this is under Korean law

Fraud (사기, sagi) under Article 347 of the Criminal Act requires deception at the time of the transaction — for instance, listing a camera as working while knowing it was not, or taking payment intending not to ship. Shipping a camera that later developed a fault, or that the buyer found unsatisfactory, is not fraud; it is at most a contract dispute about the description of goods, which the buyer pursues civilly if at all. Your shipping record and the listing are the evidence that separates the two.

Secondhand-app scams are a large category in Korea, and police treat them seriously because the classic pattern — payment received, nothing shipped, seller vanishes — is common and easy to prove. Your case does not fit that pattern, and the shipping record is what shows it. The "database" you read about is a public service where buyers check whether a seller's account or phone number has been reported; a report can be listed there without any finding, and a closed police case is the basis for having it corrected.

What the police are doing

Your friend's contact means the police attempted service or contact at your alien registration address and phone, found both inactive, and are asking known associates for your whereabouts. If they cannot reach you, the case is suspended (기소중지, giso jungji) with you recorded as an unavailable suspect, and a flag is entered against your name for immigration purposes. For a 450,000 won dispute, a warrant is unlikely; a flag is standard. The flag is what greets you at the border: detention for questioning, and a case that resumes on the spot with you as a suspect who left.

Fixing it from Australia

Three steps, none needing travel. A lawyer confirms with the station what has been alleged and what the case's status is. Your account goes on the file through counsel: the listing, the buyer's payment, the shipping record with tracking, your partial-refund offer and his refusal, in a written statement submitted under a power of attorney (위임장, wiimjang), notarized and apostilled in Australia. Police commonly accept a written statement through counsel for a departed foreign suspect in a case of this scale. Where the buyer still wants something, a settlement (합의, hapui) — a refund on return of the camera, or a modest sum — ends both the criminal and the civil question; the police close the file with a non-referral (불송치, bulsongchi), the suspension is lifted and the flag removed.

The non-referral leaves no criminal record and no immigration consequence. A visa application to study next year is then a normal application. MEGA X handles the criminal side and the settlement.

Your situation as a foreign national

Do not apply for a student visa or travel to Korea until the case status is confirmed as closed. A visa application by a person with a suspended criminal case is either refused or, worse, granted with the flag still active. Sign the power of attorney early; the apostille takes time in Australia.

What to do now, and what not to do

Do not contact the buyer; anything you write now is evidence, and an apology reads as an admission. Do assemble the listing, the messages, the payment record and the shipping tracking. Do not ask your friend to tell the police anything on your behalf; she is not your representative and cannot bind or protect you. Let counsel make the contact.

From a former police investigator's perspective

Secondhand-app fraud complaints are among the highest-volume filings Korean police handle, and investigators sort them by one question: was the item shipped. A seller with a tracking number and a refund offer is a dispute, not a fraud; investigators know it, and they close those files as soon as the seller's side is on them. A seller who left the country and cannot be reached is a file they suspend without a second thought, because it costs them nothing — and it costs the seller the next entry. Put the tracking number on the file. It takes one letter.

Send us the buyer's messages and the shipping record and we can confirm the case status within days — by text consultation or at +82-2-522-3959.

— MEGA X Law Firm Korea, Criminal Defense Team