Seoul City Issues Consumer Warning on Luxury Purchase Proxy 'Sakra Strada'... Delivery and Refund Delays Reach 214 Cases in August

Seoul Citizens' Damage Amounts to 200 Million Won
218 Damage Consultations Received in the Last Two Months

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Korea Consumer Agency announced on the 7th that consumer caution is urgently needed as damages related to the luxury brand bag, wallet, and clothing overseas purchasing agency shopping mall ‘Sacra Strada’ are rapidly increasing.

‘Sacra Strada’ promotes that it purchases luxury goods locally in Italy and sells them at low prices, attracting consumers by showing the lowest prices in internet searches, but it causes damages such as delivery delays. In particular, the shopping mall recently changed its name from ‘Sacra Strada’ to ‘Caraf’ while maintaining the same internet address, so the same damages may continue to occur.

In the past four months, a total of 218 related damage consultations have been received by the Seoul Electronic Commerce Center and the 1372 Consumer Counseling Center, with the damage amount reported to the Electronic Commerce Center reaching 192 million KRW. The problem is that 214 damage consultations were received in August alone, and due to the nature of luxury goods, the damage amount per case exceeds several million KRW, causing consumer damages to increase exponentially in a short period.

The types of damages were mostly delivery delays and refund delays. When consumers request cancellation and refunds due to excessively long delivery times, the shopping mall makes various excuses and delays the process repeatedly. Since the shopping mall does not cancel payments, consumers are requesting cancellations through card companies and payment agencies, and currently, escrow services (purchase safety services) available for card payments and account transfers at the shopping mall have been suspended.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government advised that consumers should be cautious when purchasing from internet shopping malls that only accept cash payments and recommended paying by card when purchasing high-priced items. For installment periods of three months or more and payment amounts exceeding 200,000 KRW, under Article 16 of the ‘Installment Transactions Act,’ consumers can request the card company to withdraw the installment contract application if the product is not delivered.

Ryu Dae-chang, Director of Fair Economy at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, said, “The Seoul Electronic Commerce Center has registered the shopping mall as a high-damage company and notified consumers. We will do our best to establish a cooperative system with related organizations such as the Korea Consumer Agency and the relevant district offices to provide relief when consumer damages are reported.”

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