TMON, a mobile commerce company, has been embroiled in controversy over the sale of "ghost tickets." They sold tickets, but none of planes actually took off. TMON admitted to the mistake, saying that it sold tickets that it could not sell.
According to industry sources on Feb. 7, TMON sold a ticket for Jin Air, which is scheduled to depart from Gimpo Airport at 12:15 p.m. on Jan. 27. TMON also sent a text message confirming the reservation to the customer who purchased the ticket.
However, there was a problem when the customer was checking in at the airport. There was no take-off flight at the airline concerned at the scheduled time.
TMON admitted the mistake. "The ticket sale was caused by the mistake of the staff in charge," a TMON official said. "We made a refund and made compensation to the customer."
"However, it is not a ghost ticket. This is one of the ways to sell special-priced air tickets when more than a certain number of customers get together," the official explained.
"There are some ways to book cheap air tickets in real time, but there are ways to recruit more than a certain number of customers," he said. "In this case, we had to stop selling because the latter did not meet the standards, but we failed to do so."