KBS 1 ‘Tracking 60 Minutes’

At 10 p.m. on the 6th, KBS1’s ‘Tracking 60 Minutes’ episode 1443 is ‘Click’ to Make Money? 2026 Side Job Scam Report

According to a Ministry of Data and Statistics survey, as of last September the number of people in South Korea with side jobs reached 680,000. It is the highest figure since related statistics began to be compiled in 2014. As a prolonged low-growth phase continues, supplementary income, so-called ‘side jobs’, has become a survival strategy. In this social climate, scams disguised as side jobs are growing ever more sophisticatedso-called ‘side job scams’ that use advanced tactics to prey on those desperate for extra income.

‘Tracking 60 Minutes’ investigated how side job scams induce large deposits in an instant. The program also focused on the market for ‘side job courses’ that demand high fees from people who need side work.

■ Team missions, a collective trap that operates using side jobs as bait

The structure of the team mission scam is simple yet meticulous. Everyone is in on it except the victim. Multiple people divide up roles and act to deceive the victim who has been invited into a messenger chatroom. They deliberately provoke mistakes, then emphasize responsibility and guilt for those mistakes. They stoke anxiety about sunk costs so the victim cannot abandon the money and effort already invested. They repeatedly ask, ‘Do you not feel it would be a waste to stop now?’, and insist without letup that only by making a deposit can you get back the money you have already put in. By the time victims realize it is a scam, their money has already been handed over to the team mission ring.

KBS 1 ‘Tracking 60 Minutes’

Ms. Choi Kyung-ae (alias) also received a call from a company asking her to write product reviews. The method was to remit her own money to purchase an item and then receive the principal and a 10% profit back as points. But the points that were supposedly withdrawable soon turned into meaningless numbers. Voice phishing that had felt like someone else’s problem thus became her reality.

The case of Mr. Yong Dae-seok (alias), who works in electrical construction for buildings, is not much different. It began with an offer to award small points for certifying that he watched YouTube videos. Believing he could not give up the money he had already put in, he took out loans against his apartment and car and sent increasingly larger sums. The final request they made to him as he spiraled into panic was “lend us your bank account.” By the time he realized it was a scam, 320 million won had already gone to them.

‘Tracking 60 Minutes’ met a recruiter who takes part in these team mission scams by sourcing victims. The informant said the team mission ring appears to be headquartered overseas and operate in a cell-like structure. He said he receives 80,000 won per person for pulling a potential victim into a KakaoTalk chatroom and handing them over to a team mission administrator. The recruiter the production team met was also lending Korean KakaoTalk accounts to team mission administrators in addition to recruiting victims.

■ A chain of successive scams that steals the time needed to recover

Team mission scams relentlessly provoke the victim’s sense of guilt. Whenever the victim begins to suspect ‘What if this is a scam?’, shills appear to deny it. Ms. Kang Hyo-jung (alias) said she expressed a desire to quit as the mission amounts grew, but was told, “If you alone drop out now, the other team members will all be unable to receive their profits.” She only discovered much later that the other team member doing the mission with her was also part of the scam ring. When high-value withdrawals continued one after another, even the bank called. Following the scammers’ instructions to say it was “an investment for a younger acquaintance,” Ms. Hyo-jung explained that to the bank, and only after hearing the bank employee’s explanation was she able to recognize that everything was a scam.

The problem is the damage does not end there. Side job scams target victims again after the first bite. Ms. Jung Seo-yoon (alias) had already lost about 33 million won to a team mission scam. In the middle of the interview she discovered that even the new job she had found was a scam. She checked the company’s blog and website and confirmed a job posting on a well-known recruiting platform. She even signed an electronic contract with the company, but it all turned out to be part of a scam structure with no real operating entity.

Mr. Chae Mu-gyeom (alias) sought a way to recover his losses after the first damage. He was told he could recover the lost amount by paying a small fee. Grasping at straws, he placed his last hope in a recovery service. But that too was another scam. After experiencing several rounds of repeated scams, he contacted the bank to request a payment hold on the scam ring’s account. The only answer he received was that they could not take action “against a new type of scam that is not classic voice phishing.”

■ Between education and deception: the gray zone created by high-priced courses

Mr. Im Sung-guk (alias) took a course after believing a lecturer who claimed, “By paying a Coupang BM, I can guarantee entry into the hard-to-access Coupang Rocket Delivery program.” It turned out that anyone could apply through official channels, and the onboarding contract was not difficultapproval was granted even for the production team.

Some high-priced courses have other problems. They fabricate success stories or covertly teach practices that are close to illegal. Mr. Im Do-hyun (alias), who worked at a high-priced course provider, said they even pay to produce interviews with ‘successful’ instructors as part of promotion. The course content itself skirts the boundary between legal and illegal.

These practices are repeated in online promotion. Following the informant’s explanation, the team built a site and ran a live broadcast, and found that the ‘success metrics’ were easy to reproduce. Success stories, too, are oten fabricated or misappropriated. A victim came forward saying her photo had been used without permission as a student success case. In the high-priced course market, where the line between education and deception has blurred, promotional phrases like ‘earn high profits in a short time’ still run rampant, and students continue to plead that they failed to turn a profit even after paying hefty tuition fees.

When did the choices people made to endure an anxious reality become targets for fraud? Team mission scams engineered under the banner of side jobs, and high-priced side job courses that target those who need them. ‘Tracking 60 Minutes’ episode 1443, ‘Click’ to Make Money? - 2026 Side Job Scam Report, which examines how side job scams exploit gaps in society and spread rapidly, will be broadcast at 10 p.m. on Friday, February 6.

KBS 1 ‘Tracking 60 Minutes’