This announcement was published by the South Korea Embassy in the Philippines dated Sept 14, 2020. Please see the announcement below.
Recently, a Philippine company called Sam Stay Tours has been engaged in fraud by offering fake visa stickers that were forged after receiving a high amount of money to get a Korean work visa or a tourist visa. People in the Philippines should be careful not to fall for similar scams.
Sam Stay Tours is not an accredited travel agency of the Korean Embassy, and the Korean Embassy in the Philippines is currently restricted from issuing work visas or tourist visas due to COVID-19. Also, visa stickers are no longer being issued since July 1, 2020. Instead, visas are printed out through the Visa Portal (www.visa.go.kr)
If you have applied for a Korean visa, you may check the authenticity and status of your application by clicking the 'Check Application Status' menu on the Visa Portal.
In connection with the above fraud, our embassy will ask the National Bureau of Investigation to further investigate on this matter. Please be vigilant of similar schemes.
If you have additional questions about this, please contact ph_visa@mofa.go.kr.
You can check the updated list and contact numbers of the Korean Embassy's accredited travel agencies as of February 21, 2020. Check it here.
To educate you further, most of the accredited travel agencies also offer these services to other travel agents in the Philippines especially those who are located far from the city area, and they give commission for every application process. I just don't know the exact agreement by the embassy with the accredited agencies.
However, for your protection, you may proceed to apply with the accredited travel agencies or you may want to ask your travel agent first who are they affiliaed with to verify if it is on the list.
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