'Daechi·Seocho Overwhelming 1st Place' Never Existed... False Advertising Academies Fined 1.8 Billion Won

Private academies and publishers that exaggerated or falsely advertised the careers of instructors and textbook authors, as well as the number of students and successful applicants, have been hit with fines totaling hundreds of millions of won.

On the 10th, the Korea Fair Trade Commission announced that it would impose fines totaling 1.83 billion won and corrective orders on nine university entrance exam academies and publishers for unfair labeling and advertising practices. The entities sanctioned include five academy operators: Digital Daesung, Megastudy Education Co., Ltd., SM Education Co., Ltd., Etoos Education Co., Ltd., and Highconcy Co., Ltd.; and four publishing companies: Megastudy Co., Ltd., Broker Math Co., Ltd., Egam Co., Ltd., and Imagine C&E Co., Ltd. Megastudy Education received the largest fine of 1.199 billion won, followed by Highconcy with 318 million won, and Digital Daesung with 166 million won, each receiving fines exceeding 100 million won.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission identified a total of 19 false or exaggerated advertisements by private education companies. Among these, the most common were eight cases of falsely advertising the careers of textbook authors. Megastudy advertised that instructors had "experience with the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) and Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) mock exams" even if they only participated in mock exams conducted by KICE, the CSAT organizing body. Review committee experience was also falsely represented as "exam committee member" experience. Broker Math, established by an exclusive instructor from Sidae Injae Academy, advertised itself as a "CSAT math broker secretly connecting KICE and students," but had no actual experience related to KICE. Megastudy Education promoted textbooks by academy instructors, claiming they consulted with KICE exam committee members, but no such consultations actually took place.

There were also numerous cases of academies exaggerating their performance, such as the number of students, successful applicants, and score improvements. Digital Daesung advertised itself as "number one in score improvement" based solely on subjective survey results and inflated performance by counting students enrolled in multiple courses multiple times. Megastudy Education promoted a writing course instructor by claiming that more than 50 on-site students passed the exam annually, but the actual maximum number of successful applicants was only about 15, less than half of the claim. SM Education advertised phrases such as "producing the most top-grade students," "overwhelming number one in Daechi and Seocho districts," and "holding the largest number of students," but provided no evidence to support these claims.

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