The Fair Trade Commission will refer eight advertising agencies for investigation to respond to repeated fraudulent sales practices in the online advertising agency market.
On the 21st, the Fair Trade Commission announced the results of the review by the public-private joint task force on the response to illegal online advertising agency practices for companies with the most reports in the third quarter of this year.
According to the Fair Trade Commission, most of the companies referred for investigation this time entered into contracts by making excessive promises such as "guaranteed sales increase" or "assured top exposure," then failed to keep those promises or refused refunds. There were also cases in which they impersonated a public institution handling keyword registration to deceive business operators or pretended to be employees of a major platform agency and charged advertising fees without consent. Two of the eight companies had the same representative and address, indicating that one person effectively set up multiple companies to conduct business.
In fact, one company lured advertising contracts by impersonating a government program with phrases such as "small business support project" and "selection of excellent local businesses." Another company introduced itself as having "more than 200 employees" and "annual sales of 10 billion won or more," approached as if offering free marketing, and then led clients to sign up for paid products. There was also a case in which they impersonated a delivery app after-sales management team, promised to increase order rates, and secured a contract under the pretext of program production costs.
Considering the repeated deceptive acts by online advertising agencies, the Fair Trade Commission also requested the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) to investigate cases that might violate the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection. In the process, it confirmed advertising calls without the recipient's prior consent, failure to display caller information, and failure to provide a method to refuse reception, resulting in fines for three companies.
A Fair Trade Commission official said, "We will continue to inspect illegal practices so that self-employed people can feel the changes in the market."