YouTuber Tzuyang (legal name Park Jeong-won), who has 13 million subscribers, urged caution, saying cases had been found of someone impersonating her to demand money.
On the 3rd, a notice titled "Guidance on beware of TikTok impersonation accounts and money-demand scams" was posted in the "Tzuyang" YouTube channel community. According to the notice, recently on short-form platforms such as TikTok, accounts invoking Tzuyang posted videos without permission and were found to have asked for donations to be sent to personal-name bank accounts.
In the notice, Tzuyang said, "Please do not transfer money under any circumstances," and emphasized, "The account in question posted account information under a third party's name unrelated to Tzuyang to receive money from an unspecified number of people, which is a clear financial crime."
She continued, "We requested TikTok urgently suspend the post based on violations of the Copyright Act and suspicion of fraud under the Criminal Act against the impersonation account. We will take all legal measures, including criminal complaints and civil lawsuits, under a zero-tolerance policy," citing the possibility of fraud and attempted fraud, violations of the Copyright Act due to unauthorized use of videos, violations of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, and violations of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (likelihood of confusion and infringement of the right of publicity, etc.).
Tzuyang added, "Under no circumstances do we ask for support to a personal account or demand money," and said, "Please exercise special caution to prevent damage from impersonation accounts, and if you find a suspicious case, please report it immediately to the email below."