On September 2nd, credit card companies temporarily deferred the claim for installment payments according to the request of the "Mergepoint" installment buyer. "Mergepoint" was an application that provided discount services from various purchasing websites. It established a promotion to recharge high-value bills at a discount rate of 20 percent. If 80,000 won is paid, it recharged 100,000 "mergemoney" that can be used as a gift certificate at franchises. On August 11th, "Mergeplus,” an operation of "Mergepoint,” suddenly announced to stop selling cashable "Mergemoney" and reduce its usable field when authorities requested registration for the electronic financial business. As a result, customers demanding refunds flocked to "Mergeplus" at Yeongdeungpo, and victims gathered online for their rights. Because "Mergepoint" issued prepay points without even registering as an electronic financial business to the financial authority, the exact amount of issuance and damage has not been estimated. Industries assume that the issuance of the “Mergepoint" is at least 100 billion won. Franchises of large companies could avoid damages due to safety devices such as payment agencies and guarantee insurance. However, small local stores were damaged a lot. For example, the owneroperator of a pcutlet store said, "While business was not good due to COVID19, customers suddenly flocked to our store and mother and I fried pork cutlet with joy. However, after selling about 1 million won worth of pork cutlet using "Mergepoint,” I was shocked to know the situation belatedly.” 

   On August 25th, the police raided five locations, including "Mergeplus,” “Mergesupporter,” and three payment agencies. Then, they banned three executives, including Kwon NamHee, the CEO of "Mergeplus,” from leaving the country. "Mergepoint" violated the Electronic Financial Transaction Act and could be accused of fraud if they deceived customers in anticipation of this situation. From August 25th, "11 Beonga" decided to refund the entire payment to its customers who bought through “Mergepoint.” Later, on August 26th, "Mergeplus" said there might be a duplicate refund with "11 Beonga" and announced that it would suspend its refunds, and that the refund would be resumed after consulting with companies. As a result, the burden has increased to consumers who want a quick recovery of the damage and other e-commerce industries that have not proceeded with the refund. 

   Lee Eun-Hee (Prof. of Consumer Science, Inha University) said, “In order to prevent the recurrence of the incident, platform operators must hire a merchandiser specialized in finance to review the product in advance. Institutionally, a strong punishment must be imposed if the Electronic Financial Transaction Act is not followed. In addition, gift certificates traded on the market, such as those issued by "Mergepoint,” should be monitored properly by the Financial Supervisory Service.” 

Kim Hyun-Kyoung, Reporter p01tape@pusan.ac.kr