The Korea Consumer Agency (President: Young-seen Kim, www.kca.go.kr) held the 2012 ‘Fraud Prevention Month’ Webtoon Contest in April and selected 20 prize-winning works to post them on the KCA’s blog and e-Consumer Library.    

＊Note: The ICPEN Fraud Prevention Month (FPM) is an annual, month-long education campaign that aims to inform consumers about fraud and to raise awareness of misleading or fraudulent business practices through a series of events and activities. FPM is typically in March to coincide with World Consumer Rights’ Day, but FPM activities may take place at other times of the year. FPM provides an umbrella theme to bring ICPEN members and non-members together to educate consumers and raise fraud awareness worldwide. (Source: ICPEN Website at https://icpen.org/)  

Since 2006, the Agency took an active part in the international campaign. And, celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year, the KCA held the competition to convert accumulated campaign cases to a webtoon format for better online promotion.

Three webtoonists shared the first prize including ‘White Paper for Employment Scam Prevention (by Jae-hyun Sim) focusing on employment scam by pyramid company, ‘Scam Damage Type and Ways to Prevent Damage (by Young-soo Seok) about health food sales scam and voice phishing targeting senior citizens, and ‘Scam Breakthrough Quiz Show (by Jong-yoon Seok) about tips to prevent damages from transaction of used items online, free-of-charge service offer, and mobile phone sales scam.

The prize-winning webtoon works shall be translated to English and shared with the ASEAN and ICPEN member nations and others.

＊Note: Please see the award-winning webtoon list given below.

Title

Synopsis

1

White Paper for Employment Scam Prevention

Employment scam by pyramid company

2

Scam Damage Type and Ways to Prevent Damage 

Health food sales scam and voice phishing targeting senior citizens

3

Scam Breakthrough Quiz Show 

Tips to prevent damages from transaction of used items online, free-of-charge service offer, and mobile phone sales scam

4

‘Fraud Castle’ Battle

Voice phishing by falsely representing public agency 

5

Where is the King-size Pork Cutlet  

Consumer damage by Social commerce (discount coupon sales)

6

Suspicious Meterman 

High-pressure sales of gas range hood by bogus gas meterman

7

Under the Name of Free-of -Charge

Inducing consumers to buy paid service/ product by free trial coupon

8

Prevention is better than Anything.

Consumer damage due to Internet used item deal website

9

Temptation of Free Lunch

Deceptive scams targeting senior citizens (selling health foods via free-of-charge tour) 

10

Ms. Kim’s First Salutation

Deceptive scams targeting senior citizens (selling health foods via free-of-charge tour)

Supplementary Coverage

Jin-sook Lee, Head of International affairs team, Dept. Public Relations & International Affairs Public relation Team (☎ 02-3460-3441)

Hyun-muk Lim, Researcher of International affairs team, Dept. Public Relations & International Affairs Public relation Team (☎ 02-3460-3444)