I just went through the most painful few days trying to apply for the K-ETA. My application wouldn't even submit and this screen popped up at least 50 times every time I typed in my payment Information.
I "scoured" the internet and even the K-ETA app reviews to try to figure out why it was. When I changed 1 little thing, my application finally got submitted and was even accepted an hour later.
The problem has nothing to do with your bank or international transactions - the problem is that the payment isn't even going through to your bank.
Here Are A Few Of The Things That Other People Tried And Say Worked For Them:
#1 - Use A Different Payment Method / Try A Different Credit or Debit Card
This is actually what ended up working for me. I downloaded the K-ETA app and completely filled out the application. I previously used Visa cards and it seemed they were not getting accepted. I have heard a couple people say that using Mastercard worked for them.
I asked my mom If she could put in her card details instead and It worked. (I think she used a Navy Federal credit card) If you don't have a different card, you can try asking friends or family to help you out.
#2 - Use The K-ETA App (Instead Of PC/Browsers On Your Phone)
Although I tried everything - the app, on my pc, different browsers, etc. nothing seemed to help. I believe that it may be better to use the app version in some cases, because it is more trusted. In the app you scan your passport and take a live photo of your face - this is probably seen as more trustworthy by the system or the people who look through them.
When you scan your passport it should auto-fill the application slots. The passport scan is not always accurate, so make sure to go back in to correct any errors left behind. If the scan isn't working for you, make sure to try a lot of different positions to get the scan to go through. I found that I had to hold my passport down (vertically not flat ways) and that helped. Lighting is also a key to getting it to go through.
When taking your picture the app may crash and send you back (unfortunately), but you should just try again right away.
#3 - Don't Use Google Chrome (especially Mac users)
I saw a review on the K-ETA app of someone saying that Mac users should not use Chrome in order to complete the transaction part of the application. I'm not a mac user, but it never hurts to try more than one thing if the solutions above didn't work for you.
If you can, try out other things like Microsoft, Firefox, Internet Explorer (I don't know if internet explorer is even still around to be used though)
Another tip for you is to make sure you have the correct photo sizes if you are doing this on your PC. I used Canva to make sure the photos of my passport and myself were the correct sizes and I also downloaded them as "JPG" files.
#4 - Tips From The K-ETA Website Itself
I'm not 100% sure if this is about the transaction failure pop up, because of the poor translation, but I will go ahead and leave it here.
I didn't try most of these things, except for deleting and redownloading the K-ETA app a couple of times. I don't know if that actually helped anything though.
Once again, it never hurts to try whatever you can though. It would be really sad to not be able to make your flight because of this broken system.
In conclusion, these are solutions that I either tried or found on the Internet, so I really hope that one of these helps. Try a combination of them if you need to,
If you end up trying something different and that works for you, leave a comment below this post to help out others during this process!
I have more blogs about Korea travel and life in Korea coming soon, so stay tuned!
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