Consumers to Paying Attention to Foreign Direct Purchasing through SNS advertising

- Numerous damage from brand-name bags including

CHLOE, PANDY and MIUMIU -

There has been a growing number of complaints among consumers who see a 90 % off advertisement through SNS(Facebook, Instagram) and are deceived into purchasing products on the foreign websites. Consumers are out of touch with businesses or suffered from phony products, which requires extra attention.

According to the Korea Consumer Agency(President Han Kyeon-pyo), there are 25 cases of consultations regarding brand-name bags through the Cross Border Transaction Consumer Portal(crossborder.kca.go.kr) from May 1 to May 31, 2017. URLs are different each other but it seems like the same businesses considering the same main homepage and business contact information. The KCA is actively responding to preventing consumer damage while calling on foreign SNS businesses such as Facebook and Instagram to verify their advertisements.

<Foreign brand-name advertisements through SNS>

The Korea Consumer Agency has revealed the name of scan-suspicious websites and will respond to consumer damage from foreign purchasing by making continuous market observation and sharing information on the relevant organizations in a swift manner.

*   As for the damage reported to the Cross Border Transaction Consumer Portal if there is no explanation or answer for more than 10 days, although the KCA asks foreign businesses for content confirmation or measures through its official email, the businesses websites will be considered as scan-suspicious.

Meanwhile, the KCA has run the “Cross Border Transaction Consumer Portal (http://crossborder.kca.go.kr)” to ensure consumer purchase foreign products safely since October 2015. It has also provided preventive guidelines for preventing consumer damage, tariffs, customs clearance and parallel import information. Consumers are required to check ”Guidelines for foreign direct purchasing users” and ”Check Point for preventing damage from foreign direct purchasing”.