The Korea Fair Trade Commission is investigating Korea's three largest open market firms GMarket, Auction and 11st Street, which allegedly deleted thousands of complaints on their online customer boards last year.
A local lawmaker from the New Politics Alliance for Democracy recently said the three firms deleted a total of 4,360 product reviews complaining about products sold on their shopping malls last year. GMarket deleted 501, Auction 602 and 11st Street 3,257, according to the data revealed.
The lawmaker said they deleted many complaints and left reviews only favorable to them, misleading consumers to buy products.
One client declining to be identified said he bought Samsung vacuum cleaner for 210,000 won early this year. However, when he called the service center to cancel the delivery if the delivery did not yet started. He also said if the delivery already started then just let it go. As the service center said delivery did not start yet he canceled the order. However, he later found out that only 190,000 won was refunded to his bank account. They said they returned the money excluding the delivery charge of 20,000 won.
The next day, he posted it on the review board. And soon he found out that his writing was deleted. When the service center told him that, "Under the clause, a seller can arbitrarily delete information on customer boards."
In effect, open market companies have clauses that sellers can arbitrarily delete information if the product review seems improper. Industry observers said the standard of improperness is vague and they may misuse the clause.
According to the industry data, the negative product review is rare on online shopping malls. For GMarket, negative reviews accounted for only 1.5 percent of the total review. Auction had 0.6 percent and 11st Street had 1.9 percent.
Only after the lawmaker raised the issue, the Korea Fair Trade Commission made an investigation about whether the clause caused damages to customers.
The lawmaker Shin Hak-yong, who raised the issue, said, "As open market companies arbitrarily delete customers' information, clients are not able to get accurate information for products. The fair trade commission should make an investigation."
This is not the first time the open market companies were embroiled in controversy related to fair trade issues.
The commission made an investigation against open market companies and social commerce companies from late last year to this April about their false advertising. Some open market companies including Interpark reportedly received some fees in return for exposing certain products as the best products or recommended products.
Also, last month, the commission made an investigation about unfair transaction between open market companies including Coupang, GMarket and 11st Street. The antitrust watchdog probed into commission and payment issues between the social commercial giants and their partner companies. It came as a lawmaker Kim Young-hwan of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy called for the probe into the unfair practice during the National Assembly meeting on Wednesday. According to the lawmaker, the unpaid amount combined by social commerce companies stands at around 500 billion won.
"Small stores using delivery apps including Woowa Brothers should pay 10 percent commission to the delivery app as well as 10 percent additional tax. This may led consumers to buy delivery food at a higher price,” he added.
The commission said, "Business Transaction Policy Division and Market Watch Division are now reviewing the charge of unfair transaction of the companies. If we find out the fact that they violated the law against their partner companies, we will make site investigation."
Back in 2013, the commission had imposed a fine of 10 million won on two online shopping malls which had its employees write false comments on their products.
