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Seoul warns of rampant fraud on online shopping sites ahead of year-end holidays
By Lee So-jeongPublished : Nov. 22, 2018 - 18:38
As the peak shopping season approaches, with Black Friday falling in the US this week and the holiday season next month, consumers are at an increased risk of fraud when using cross-border shopping sites, the Seoul Electronic Commerce Center said Thursday.
The center under the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that it had handled eight consumer complaints against Rogervi2018, an online shopping site that purported to sell products from the French luxury shoe brand Roger Vivier, owned by Tod’s Spa Group.
The center said the fraudulent site listed prices in US dollars, but the payments were actually made in Chinese yuan. There is no contact number for customer service inquiries and no response to email inquiries. Also, the website attracted consumers by designing its homepage to look very similar to that of the authentic Roger Vivier site and used social media to advertise 85 percent off on Black Friday, the center said.
“Most of the fraudulent internet sites could not be verified, as they do not disclose business information … operating online shopping (sites) intermittently only for large-scale (seasonal sales). Also, they use foreign servers to make it difficult to restrict their use,” a representative of the center said.
Consumer fraud is on the rise as more cross-border shoppers seek bargains toward the end of the year, according to the center, which mentioned Single’s Day in China as well as Cyber Monday, Black Friday and Boxing Bay.
Fraudulent sites typically sell items such as jackets, shoes, accessories and vacuum cleaners. They often refuse to provide refunds or are impossible to contact.
By Lee So-jeong (xojeong2@heraldcorp.com)
