The luxury shopping platform "Must It" received sanctions from the Fair Trade Commission for falsely advertising that its discount event was about to end, despite continuing the sale. Must It stated that products could be returned for defects or wrong delivery within 3 months, but misled consumers into believing it was 7 days. It was pointed out that they obstructed consumers' legitimate withdrawal of purchase offers. Another shopping mall, "Trenbi," was also caught engaging in the same practices.
On the 20th, the Fair Trade Commission issued corrective orders and imposed fines of 12 million won and penalty surcharges of 16 million won on Must It, Trenbi, and Balaan for violating the Act on Fair Labeling and Advertising and the Electronic Commerce Act. The fines were set at 5.5 million won for Must It, 3.5 million won for Trenbi, and 3 million won for Balaan. The penalty surcharge was only imposed on Must It, amounting to 16 million won.
According to the Fair Trade Commission, Must It continuously held discount events for specific products from January 2021 until July last year while using phrases such as "only 0 days of ultra-low price time sale" and "the sale is about to end." This deceived consumers into believing that the discount event was only available for a limited time. The Fair Trade Commission noted that this constituted an unfair advertising act prohibited by the Act on Fair Labeling and Advertising.
Additionally, Must It and Trenbi restricted consumer returns for discounted products and products with size mismatches by citing reasons not stipulated in the Electronic Commerce Act. They misled consumers into believing that withdrawal of purchase offers was only possible within 7 days for products with defects or incorrect deliveries. According to the Electronic Commerce Act, the withdrawal period is 3 months. A Fair Trade Commission official said, "They provided false information to obstruct consumers' withdrawal of purchase offers."
Trenbi and Balaan were also penalized for failing to provide information regarding the manufacturer, country of manufacture, and importer of the products.
A Fair Trade Commission official stated, "We will continue to monitor unfair advertising practices and violations of the Electronic Commerce Act in the online platform market going forward," adding, "We plan to respond severely if violations are detected."