Taking Advantage of COVID-19 Spread... Rampant Unethical Business Practices

Fair Trade Commission Inspects Mask Bundling Sales and Deceptive Air Purifier Advertisements

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[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] Recently, online shopping malls have been selling car air purifiers and providing 10 KF94 masks as free gifts. These products are already sold out. The masks are offered as gifts when purchasing specific products. Additionally, there have been false and exaggerated advertisements claiming that air purifiers prevent COVID-19, and even cosmetics emphasizing 'hand sanitizing power' despite being regular cosmetics.

According to the related industry on the 2nd, as the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) caused shortages of masks and other items, sales tactics exploiting this situation have been appearing one after another.

When searching for air purifiers on online shopping malls, it is not difficult to find advertising phrases like 'COVID-19 prevention.' This can mislead consumers and is likely a violation of the Act on Labeling and Advertising. As such false and exaggerated advertisements have become widespread, recently the Korea Consumer Agency announced through the Happy Dream Open Consumer Portal's 'COVID-19 Fact Check' that 'air purifiers that catch COVID-19 are not true' and 'there is no certified case of air purification technology filtering COVID-19.' The Consumer Agency is conducting inspections of such deceptive advertisements together with the Fair Trade Commission.

'Hand sanitizer cosmetics' are also an example of exploiting the shortage of hand sanitizers. Consumers may mistakenly believe these products have sterilizing and disinfecting effects like quasi-drugs. The current Pharmaceutical Affairs Act prohibits 'advertisements with content that cannot be objectively verified or unverified regarding product quality and efficacy.' Furthermore, the Fair Trade Commission specifies in the revised 'Unfair Labeling and Advertising Act' that advertisements can be considered unfair if there is even a tendency or possibility to mislead consumers.

Recently, a damage report was received claiming 'customers were forced to buy other products to purchase masks,' prompting the Fair Trade Commission to conduct an on-site investigation of the relevant company. On the 28th of last month, an on-site investigation was conducted at a local daily necessities store following reports that 'masks were sold only on the condition of purchasing other products' or 'masks were sold only if other products were purchased above a certain amount.' However, the investigation confirmed that these claims were not true. A Fair Trade Commission official explained, "The company limited mask sales to 3 per person, but after one purchase, an employee’s remark to a customer trying to buy masks again?'Why do you keep lining up to buy masks?'?was misunderstood. It was confirmed that there was no bundling of masks with other products or mask sales conditional on purchasing other items."

On the same day, the Fair Trade Commission also conducted an investigation of a company exporting cosmetics to China, following suspicions of mask bundling. The investigation found that some masks secured as free gifts for export were sold only to the company’s members.

A Fair Trade Commission official stated, "In cases of mask bundling, unfair and excessive benefits must be proven, but it is difficult to apply this to both cases. However, since the possibility of such acts occurring in the future cannot be ruled out, monitoring is being strengthened."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.