Shopping scams, taxi rip-offs fuel 71% rise in foreign tourist complaints in South Korea

A Japanese tourist walked into a cosmetics store in Seoul, only to find no prices on display. Pressured by staff, she bought a face mask set — then realized it was being sold elsewhere for one-third of the price. When she tried to return it, the staff instead convinced her to buy a different product, which also turned out to be overpriced.

A Singaporean traveler who left their phone in a taxi was told by the driver it would cost 500,000 won ($350.77) to get it back. Under Korean law, that kind of demand would only be legal if the phone were worth more than 2.5 million won. Authorities…