Parents For Hire

For kids worldwide, it's the worst kind of letter home: a request for a meeting between parents and teachers. But in Korea, beleaguered students who are loath to tell their folks that they've broken the rules or flunked a test have discovered a nifty new alternative: online employment agencies, which—for a fee—will provide them with a phony parent to take care of the matter.

In the past two years, dozens of websites with names like angelpartner.co.kr or helpmon.com have sprung up, offering anything from fake sons and daughters to fake...