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The K-pop photo card frenzy comes with a catch. Here’s how not to get scammed.

Published: 15 Oct. 2025, 09:33

CHO YONG-JUN
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K-pop photo card vending machine at the Pocaspot store in western Seoul [CHO YONG-JUN]

Photo cards, collectible mini-photos of K-pop artists that come with albums or different merch, are just the size of a credit card, but they mean a great deal to fans, many of whom buy multiple copies in hopes of pulling their favorite member. The problem? A growing number of counterfeits is frustrating collectors.

For instance, over 710,000 IVE photo cards, 110,000 BTS merchandise and nearly 100,000 NewJeans photo cards turned out to be fake — and that’s just the ones caught by the Korea Customs Service since 2023. So, where can you purchase authentic photo cards?

The textbook way of obtaining photo cards is by purchasing physical albums and praying for the chance to get a photo card of a member you like, which often means buying tens of thousands of albums just for the photo cards, and not the CD.

What’s worse is that many of the photo cards are limited run — they are often only included if you preorder with a specific vendor or win a fan sign raffle, and you can’t purchase them, at least officially, after the short window, resulting in many K-pop fans turning their heads to trade and buy photo cards from individuals and resellers.

Photo cards displayed at the Pocaspot store in western Seoul [CHO YONG-JUN]

But the issue is that there are no realistic ways for the buyers to tell if the photo cards are authentic or not — it’s not like there are holograms of authenticity, which is where resale platforms like Pocamarket, its offline store Pocaspot and other stores like Pocaboo come in.

According to data released by Reform Party lawmaker Cheon Ha-ram on Sept. 30, over 1.2 million counterfeit photo cards were caught at customs in less than three years, from 2023 to August this year. There were 713,593 fake photo cards of girl group IVE, followed by 99,888 NewJeans, 77,344 IU and 75,404 fake photo cards of Stray Kids, on top of the 110,202 non-photo card merchandise of BTS caught by the customs.

Pocamarket says it solved that issue. Pocamarket is a mobile app-based platform for trading K-pop photo cards, where fans can both sell and buy photo cards of different K-pop artists. The service, accessible through its Korean and global mobile apps, allows fans to sell photo cards directly to Pocamarket — but only if the photo cards are authentic. Once fans mail photo cards to the company, they will first evaluate them through their own system before paying out the sellers and listing the photo cards on Pocamarket.

A tablet at the Pocaspot store in western Seoul shows different K-pop photo cards currently in the inventory [CHO YONG-JUN]

Tourists and anyone living outside Korea can use the global version of the Pocamarket app to directly purchase the photo cards. The app supports international shipping, or items can be collected in a Pocaspot store in Seoul.

Korean nationals or foreigners with Korean phone numbers can use the Korean version of the app, which also allows them to sell the photo cards to Pocamarket and directly trade with other fans.

Pocaspot brick-and-mortar stores, located near Hongik University Station in Mapo District, western Seoul and in Myeongdong in central Seoul, act as a convenient way for tourists to purchase authentic and limited edition photo cards without having to wait for shipping.

The Hongdae branch is above an anime merchandise store, taking the entire second and third floors of the building it occupies. The store had some photo cards of popular K-pop idols on display, such as IVE’s Jang Won-young, NCT 127’s Jaehyun and BTS members, but many of the spaces only had empty photo card cases labelled sold out — but this is where the magic comes in.

They don’t have all the photo cards displayed at the store, as most of them are stored safely in Pocamarket’s warehouse. Instead, customers can use the 10 or so tablets in the store to browse through the inventory and order them on the spot. If the purchases are made before 4 p.m., the photo cards will be delivered to the store for the customer to collect.

A tablet at the Pocaspot store in western Seoul shows a Karina photo card listed at 160,500 won ($113) [CHO YONG-JUN]

Notably, a rare Karina photo card from girl group asepa was listed for 160,050 won ($112) while an An Yu-jin photo card was listed for 1 million won. Generally, girl group photo cards are more expensive than boy band photo cards.

“The photo cards purchased here come from the warehouse, which we rigorously check for its authenticity,” a staff manager at the store said.

The Pocamarket store also had a big Poca Gacha vending machine, where they had photo card blind boxes for each K-pop group. Priced at 49,990 won, each pack offers 10 random boy band photo cards or six girl group photo cards.

Julie, from Denmark, was one of the customers who opted to buy the blind photo card set at the Pocamarket store. She had purchased a BTS blind box set and the Ateez blind box set from the vending machine.

“I think the price is actually okay for getting 10 photo cards,” she said. “I won’t open it here, though, so I hope I get something special.”

K-pop photo card vending machine at the Pocaboo store in western Seoul [CHO YONG-JUN]

Another store near the Hongik University Station was Pocaboo, a small, unmanned K-pop photo card store that is quite different from Pocaspot. The store, playing loud K-pop music on repeat, had cheaper “lucky draw” K-pop photo card vending machines, where you could buy a random photo card of a K-pop band, such as Seventeen, IVE, Ateez, Stray Kids and Tomorrow X Together, for 3,300 won each. The store also had a separate vending machine that had hundreds of different photo cards, ranging from 19,900 won to 99,900 won in price.