“Do you have any evidence that this transaction is fraudulent?”
Son Mo (33), an office worker, went to a police station in Incheon to report fraud on the 3rd, but could not hide his embarrassment when he saw the police who were passive in accepting the case. The day before, Son saw an article on an internet second-hand trading site that said, ‘We are selling cultural gift certificates at an 18% discount’ and deposited 255,000 won.
However, the seller only delivered a gift certificate worth 50,000 won and disappeared. Son complained, “The police refused to accept the complaint as they said the case was a civil case.
○ Reduced non-face-to-face transactions and new types of fraud
As second-hand transactions are on the rise, small-value scams surrounding them are on the rise. As non-face-to-face activities increase after the spread of COVID-19, a new scam that exploits it has appeared, which is one of the reasons for the increase in fraud damage. However, in the case of small claims, the police are often passive in handling the case, so victims have difficulties from the stage of filing the case.
According to the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), there were a total of 3,847 online platform second-hand transaction disputes between January and November last year, more than four times the number of the previous year (906). Second-hand trading volume itself also increased significantly. According to Carrot Market, a second-hand trading platform, the number of used trading posts posted on the carrot market last year was 155 million, up 30% from the previous year.
As non-face-to-face transactions have increased, so have the types of fraud. A typical example is to persuade a buyer to “make a safe transaction to prevent fraud” and then send a link to a fake safe transaction site similar to the real one to induce deposits.
Ms. Im (34) recently encountered this type of scam while trying to purchase a coffee machine at a carrot market. He said, “The seller sent me a link to Naver Pay and said that if I deposit money on the safe transaction site, I will ship it.
The ‘doorknob transaction’, in which the seller hangs the product on the doorknob of the buyer’s house and deposits the product after the buyer confirms the item, is also a transaction method that is vulnerable to fraud. This is because there are many cases where buyers take only the goods and then go into hiding without depositing money. There is also a scam in which the seller sends a barcode that has already been used when selling mobile gift certificates or gift certificates.
○ Difficulty in relieving damage
In the case of small amounts of money fraud, it is not practically easy to get all the money back. Koo, a 28-year-old office worker, was scammed of 150,000 won two years ago while trying to purchase wireless earphones from a second-hand trading site. However, after the case was transferred from the police to the prosecution, there was no contact. It is not yet known how far the investigation has progressed.
Lim, who had been scammed by a coffee machine, also reported the incident to a police station in Gyeonggi-do, but was told “don’t expect too much”. One front-line police officer said, “After the adjustment of the prosecutor’s and police investigation authority, the workload is so high that it is difficult to actively deal with small-value fraud cases. It could be even faster.”
A lawyer explained, “Direct trading is the best way to prevent small-sum fraud, and it is efficient to register on a fraud victim information sharing site immediately after being harmed.” Reporter Jang Kang-ho callme@hankyung.com
