New information regarding visiting NCRC’s two locations.

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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.

Now it’s creating even more problems because completing the KAS process is required before Adoptees can book in-person visits at NCRC’s two separate locations.

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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.