A bus in downtown Jeju. This image is unrelated to the article. [Yonhap]
A bus in downtown Jeju. This image is unrelated to the article. [Yonhap]

Eyewitness accounts of foreign tourists tapping transit cards with insufficient balances and boarding buses in Jeju without paying are spreading online, stirring controversy.

A tip posted recently on Instagram described repeated sightings of Chinese tourists riding a Jeju bus for free.

A person identified only as A, who said she was visiting Jeju with her daughter, boarded Bus No. 101 at Jeju International Airport, where a large number of foreign tourists were already on board. The route departs from Jeju International Airport and passes through popular tourist destinations including Woljeong-ri and Seongsan Ilchulbong, making it a heavily used line among visitors.

A said that as the bus stopped at multiple stations, she heard a "no balance" alert each time one or more Chinese-speaking passengers tapped their transit cards on the reader.

"At first I thought nothing of it, but at every stop there was a Chinese passenger with no balance," she said. "English-speaking foreigners were tapping through just fine, so it seemed strange."

The problem came after the "insufficient balance" alert sounded. When the bus driver and the Chinese passengers could not communicate, the passengers boarded anyway without paying.

"When someone taps a card with no balance and there's a language barrier with the driver, they just muddle through and end up riding for free," A said, adding that three more Chinese passengers later also boarded without paying after hearing the same alert.

Seated near the front of the bus and able to watch passengers tap their cards, A said she wondered whether some were deliberately not topping up their cards, knowing the driver would let them on regardless.

After A's account spread online, other users chimed in with similar experiences, expressing shared frustration.

One user said they had witnessed the same thing in Busan, Daejeon and Seoul. "The driver kept explaining at every red light that the fare hadn't been paid, but some foreigners somehow paid while others just rode for free — I couldn't believe what I was seeing," the user wrote.

Others shared their own accounts. One user wrote of seeing Chinese passengers repeatedly getting on and off without tapping their cards near Busan Station and Nampodong Station. Another described a limousine bus from Seomyeon to Gimhae Airport where one of two Chinese passengers had an insufficient balance; the driver let the bus depart but grew furious, saying, "It's always the Chinese who do this." A third user said they witnessed a group at Osong Station cycling through about five cards after the bus had already pulled away, then simply sitting down without paying. "I saw it at Seongsu Station too — it's spread all over the country," another wrote.

Some, however, cautioned against concluding from a handful of online accounts that tourists of a particular nationality are systematically evading fares. Still, there is growing agreement that authorities need to identify how foreign tourists are dodging fares and put separate countermeasures in place.


betterj@heraldcorp.com