New information regarding visiting NCRC’s two locations.

Image credit: Stock.

Please note the information below primarily relates to those Adoptees who plan to visit Korea IN PERSON to visit NCRC’s TWO locations.

(For those who make purely online requests who do NOT intend to visit Korea, your wait time for fulfillment of a Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure request may be from 5-8 months, according to Adoptees’ self reporting and NCRC itself).

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S. Korea has managed to develop an even more convoluted way to rip off Adoptees who plan to visit Korea for birth family search: by making visits to NCRC nearly impossible through its refusal to EVER fix the KAS website. The KAS site has been a broken mess for at least a decade.

Yet it is REQUIRED for Adoptees to submit a Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure request through the KAS website BEFORE they can book online appointments at NCRC’s two locations. Since the KAS website is, quite frankly, shite, many Adoptees are unable to navigate the process successfully. The worst outcomes are for those who physically go to Korea, only to realize once there that they cannot actually visit NCRC in person without having successfully navigated the online process.

NCRC is WELL aware of the issues with the KAS website, and even issued a useless apology for these issues at a recent conference in Korea. We think that the thousands of dollars spent on this conference would be better spent on finally FIXING the KAS website!

Here’s the problem:

Completing the online NCRC Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure request process via the KAS process is required before Adoptees can book in-person visits at NCRC’s two separate locations.

Please note:

NCRC has TWO separate locations, located about one hour apart.

NCRC’s First Location:
NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do.

You can only VIEW your former Korean Adoption Agency at NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do. You cannot take photos of any documents. You can only take handwritten notes. This is fairly useless since most Adoptees don’t speak / read Korean! For this reason it is strongly recommended to take a translator with you to this meeting, if possible. NCRC social workers at this location do speak limited English.

NCRC’s Second Location:
NCRC’s Main Office in Seoul.

Only AFTER FIRST visiting NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do to VIEW your file can you THEN visit NCRC’s Main Office in Seoul to pick up a COPY of your former Korean Adoption Agency file. If you leave Korea without a COPY of your file in hand, be prepared to wait up to 8 months to receive it through the KAS website!

Both of NCRC’s locations require that you make an online appointment in advance. Please read below for more information about time frames for when you are allowed to book.

Please note that typically NCRC cannot meet with an Adoptee at their Main Office in Seoul until a few days AFTER the Adoptee’s first visit to NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility. This of course presumes that the Adoptee has enough time in Korea for both of these appointments — and that NCRC has available appointments at their Main Office in Seoul!

NCRC might tell you in person at the Temporary Storage Facility (where you can only VIEW your file, NOT get a COPY of your file) that they will “email your file” but this is NOT true.

In order to get a COPY of your file from NCRC, you must book a follow up appointment at NCRC’s Main Office in Seoul.

If you leave Korea without a copy of your file, be prepared to wait up to 8 months to receive it onlilne through the KAS website!

You get faster service in Korea, because that is how the Korean Government gets Adoptees to spend thousands of dollars visiting!

However, MANY Adoptees are reporting that when attempting to create a login for the KAS website, they are required to confirm their account through SMS (text message) which often FAILS.

Adoptees are also reporting that their attempts to complete the online Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure requests often FAIL due to the KAS website being shite.

Since Adoptees are required to complete the online Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure request as a pre-requisite for booking an appointment online to visit NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility to VIEW their former Korean Adoption Agency file — and since NCRC requires that online appointments to visit NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility must be made within 2 weeks to 50 days prior to an intended visit — many Adoptees whose online attempts to navigate the shite KAS website are learning the hard way that they CANNOT visit NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility to VIEW their file.

Since visiting NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility is a pre-requisite for visiting NCRC’s Main Office in Seoul — which is the only place Adoptees can pick up a COPY of their file — some Adoptees who are not aware of all of this are leaving Korea empty handed.

In other words: the terrible KAS website, which NCRC never fixes, is preventing Adoptees from visiting NCRC’s two locations in order to view and get a copy of their file!

(Of course, the KAS website issues are ALSO causing massive issues for those attempting to do purely online requests who do not intend to visit Korea in person).

Another complication is that NCRC only meets with Adoptees at its Temporary Storage Facility three times a day, three days a week. This means that just 9 Adoptees per week have the chance to VIEW their file at NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility.

As a result, securing an appointment during the busy summer months — when large numbers of Adoptees are in town, alongside unpredictable conferences and Adoptee tours — could become nearly as competitive and frustrating as trying to buy concert tickets.

By making the NCRC / birth family search process incredibly difficult to navigate, the Korean Government gets Adoptees to spend THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS on repeated trips to Korea! The Korean Government isn’t stupid, and they have been reaping the financial benefits of Adoptees’ frustrations for decades.

IF you plan to visit Korea for birth family search and plan to visit NCRC’s two locations, please DO NOT BOOK YOUR TRIP TO KOREA UNTIL YOU HAVE CONFIRMATION OF YOUR NCRC VISITS!!!

Otherwise, you could potentially waste thousands of dollars and leave Korea without a copy of your former Korean Adoption Agency file!

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Thank you to an Adoptee for sharing the following information about visits to NCRC’s two locations:

*Please note that we have also included previously known information to make some sense of this process.

Before Adoptees are able to make online reservations to visit NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do (in order to VIEW their former Korean Adoption Agency file) and at NCRC’s Main Office in Seoul (in order to pick up a COPY of their former Korean Adoption Agency file), Korean Adoptees must FIRST complete a Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure request through the KAS website.

However, many Korean Adoptees are experiencing issues creating a login for the KAS website. Additionally, even for those who are able to create a login, the KAS website frequently fails when Adoptees attempt to submit their Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure requests through the site.

We strongly recommend that if you are planning to visit Korea for birth family search involving NCRC, that you NOT book your trip to Korea UNTIL you know that you can successfully submit a Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure through the KAS website, and successfully book visits to both NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do (to VIEW your former Korean Adoption Agency file) AND to NCRC’s Main Office in Seoul (to pick up a COPY of your file).

Please note that you MUST FIRST visit NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do BEFORE you can pick up a copy of your file at NCRC’s Main Office in Seoul.

In order to do either of the above, you must FIRST complete a successful Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure request through the KAS website, which right now, is giving almost EVERYONE problems!

Please understand that your NCRC requests will only be expedited IF you physically go to Korea and are able to successfully book appointments at NCRC’s TWO separate locations PRIOR to your trip. If you are unable to visit NCRC’s two locations in person in Korea, you can expect up to an 8 month wait time online, where you will be standing in line behind 2,000 others (as of now) and likely thousands more as time goes on.

This is S. Korea’s shit-tastic way of getting Adoptees to spend ever more money in their country, where Adoptees are deliberately set up to fail in their birth family search efforts, so that those who can afford to do so are forced to make repeated expen$ive trips back to Korea.

Pro-tip for Adoptees: DO NOT GO TO KOREA until they sort this shit out!

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NCRC has said that a visit to the Temporary Storage Facility (in order to VIEW your former Korean Adoption Agency file) can only be requested between 2 weeks and 50 days in advance of an Adoptee’s intended visit.

Please note that NCRC only meets with Adoptees at the Temporary Storage Facility 3 times per day / 3 times per week. This means that just 9 Adoptees per week can view their former Korean Adoption Agency file at NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do.

In order to pick up a COPY of your file from NCRC’s Main Office in Seoul — which is a DIFFERENT location than NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do — Adoptees must FIRST schedule an appointment at the Temporary Storage Facility. You cannot simply pick up a copy of your file at NCRC’s Main Office without FIRST visiting NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility.

Please read back through our Paperslip Blog posts for more information. We’re frankly tired of explaining this whole mess.