Coupang announced a compensation plan to provide a purchase voucher worth 50,000 won to all customers affected by the personal information leak, but consumer and civic groups are criticizing it as an ineffective measure. They note that by issuing vouchers that can be used only on its own platform, Coupang is trying to lure back members who "quit Coupang" and use that to boost sales and expand market share.
The Korea Consumer Organizations Council issued a statement on the 29th calling Coupang's compensation plan "an insult to consumers" and said it "rejects a liability-evading compensation plan."
The council said Coupang's compensation plan "is designed around consumption-promoting benefits and is not compensation for a personal information violation, but rather a marketing tool that induces additional purchases and re-subscriptions by consumers," adding it is "a method aimed at maintaining and strengthening the transaction relationship rather than restoring damages."
It also voiced skepticism about Coupang's move to compensate even former members who withdrew. The council said, "There is a high possibility it will be used as advance packaging to dilute legal liability in lawsuits and dispute mediation," and added, "Compared with the existing trend in major telecom and card company leak cases, where compensation of 100,000 to 300,000 won per person has been recognized, it should be critically verified."
It then urged the government and the National Assembly to recognize this incident as a serious case and to conduct a thorough investigation, impose administrative measures, and prepare measures to prevent a recurrence.
People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) also raised its voice the same day in a commentary, saying, "Coupang has once again deceived the public." It pointed out that for those who are not paid membership subscribers, the structure forces them to add money to the voucher to purchase goods, saying, "It is nothing more than an inducement to expand sales. Unless the compensation is cash or cash-equivalent value, it is not damage recovery but forced consumption."
People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) particularly criticized the splitting of the 50,000 won compensation across several categories, calling it "a classic compensation-splitting tactic that reduces real value and choice."
It added, "This is not a discount but an expenditure of marketing costs. Even then, it ultimately means they do not intend to incur losses by expanding sales—how is this compensation? It is an ethical deviation that slips promotion of the company's new businesses into the place of victim compensation."
Meanwhile, starting Jan. 15 next year, Coupang plans to provide a total of 50,000 won in vouchers usable across four categories—Coupang all products, Coupang Eats, Coupang Travel, and R.LUX—to about 33.7 million people who received personal information leak notices. The total compensation scale is about 1.685 trillion won.