Consumer Agency: "Increase in Consumer Complaints on International Digital Game Transactions... Majority of Consultations Involve Minors"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeon Jinyoung] #In July 2021, a minor child of Mr. A downloaded a game from an application (app) market on Mr. A’s smartphone and paid 140,000 KRW for game content usage fees. The next day, Mr. A confirmed that the service was not used and requested cancellation and refund of the payment from the app market operator, but was directed to contact the overseas game operator directly and received no response to the refund request.

The Korea Consumer Agency announced that a significant number of international transaction consumer complaints related to refusal of cancellation and refund for game content purchases made by minors have occurred.

According to the Consumer Agency on the 14th, a total of 445 international transaction consumer consultations related to digital game services in Korea were received from 2019 to 2021, and the number has been steadily increasing each year.

The main reason for consumer complaints was ‘refusal of contract cancellation and refund,’ accounting for 74.4% (331 cases). Specifically, ‘payments made by minors without legal guardian consent’ accounted for 33.2% (110 cases), ‘payments using third-party identity theft’ 12.4% (41 cases), ‘system errors such as connection failures and bugs’ 10.9% (36 cases), and ‘payments made by mistake’ 7.9% (26 cases), in that order.

To prevent consumer damage in international transactions involving digital game services, the Consumer Agency advised ▲carefully reviewing the terms and conditions before purchase, as refunds are difficult with overseas game operators ▲using the English template posted on the Korea Consumer Agency’s International Transaction Consumer Portal to promptly express cancellation requests when contacting overseas game operators ▲minimizing the mobile information usage payment limit or setting a smartphone payment password ▲purchasing game-acquired virtual goods cautiously, as refunds are often difficult.

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