Posts alleging foreign tourists skipped bus fares spur calls for multilingual guidance

Social media posts alleging that foreign passengers rode Seoul buses without paying after their transit cards showed insufficient balances have prompted calls for clearer multilingual fare guidance.

One passenger claimed in a post Monday that four foreign women boarded a Seoul city bus after tapping cards that showed insufficient balances.

The women then walked farther inside without paying, the post said. The driver did not intervene, according to the writer.

The writer said they confronted the women before getting off.

“When I told them they couldn’t ride without paying, they said they knew and looked flustered,” the post read.

Other users shared similar accounts. One said they had witnessed two such incidents within a week, while another claimed to have repeatedly seen similar scenes around Gwanghwamun Square.

Some users called for fare-payment notices in English, Chinese and other languages, as well as guidance for drivers on how to handle passengers whose cards are declined.

The discussion follows a similar social media post in September alleging that foreign tourists boarded the No. 101 bus from Jeju Airport after their cards showed insufficient balances.

According to Seoul Metropolitan Government’s guidance for cashless buses, passengers whose transit cards have insufficient balances can pay by bank transfer using a fare-payment notice on the bus, or use a mobile transit card.