Korea Consumer Agency signs an MOU with National Consumer Complaints Centre of Malaysia

- Expanding foundations to support resolving increasing consumer complaints in cross-border transactions -

The Korea Consumer Agency (President: Lee Hee Sook) and the National Consumer Complaints Centre of Malaysia* had an online signing ceremony for the memorandum of understanding for the resolution of consumer complaints in cross-border transactions on July 13 with the aim to ensure effective response to increasing consumer disputes related to cross-border transactions.

     * National Consumer Complaints Centre: A not-for-profit organization established by the Department of  Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, which is responsible for supporting consumer dispute settlement, capacity building, etc.

With this memorandum of understanding, when Korean consumers file consumer complaints with the Korea Consumer Agency in relation to consumer damage arising from using products or services offered or sold by Malaysian businesses they can be assisted by the National Consumer Complaints Centre, and Malaysian consumers unsatisfied with Korean businesses’ services or products can be assisted by the Korea Consumer Agency.

Consumer complaints arising from cross-border transactions* are often not easily resolvable due to language barriers, temporal and spatial limitations, and differences in governing laws. On this, the Korea Consumer Agency has concluded memorandums of understanding with international consumer protection agencies since 2015 and helps resolve consumer complaints by offering consumer counselling services and consumer alerts on its cross-border transaction consumer portal (http://crossborder.kca.go.kr)**.

* Consumer inquiries on cross-border transactions received last year were 24,194, an increase of  9.1% compared to the previous year (22,169).

** Free information on cross-border transaction case studies and useful materials such as templates in English, which consumers can use to raise objections against international businesses.

Given the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 crisis, the Korea Consumer Agency plans to continue expanding its international cooperative network in a non-face-to-face manner and strive to eliminate blind spots in consumer rights related to cross-border transactions.