"No Change Given"... Rapid Increase in Complaints at Unmanned Stores

45 Consumer Complaints in the Past 3 Years
Vulnerability to Crime... Need for Enhanced Education

It has been revealed that consumer complaints, such as payment errors, are steadily being raised at the increasing number of unmanned stores.

According to the Korea Consumer Agency on the 28th, the total number of consumer consultations related to unmanned ice cream stores received over three years from 2021 to last year was 45. The most common types of complaints were kiosk errors where payments were not processed or change was not refunded, and cases where expired food products were sold, each accounting for 11 cases. Complaints about high selling prices also amounted to 6 cases.

In a survey conducted by the Consumer Agency targeting 900 elementary, middle, and high school students who had experience using unmanned ice cream stores, satisfaction with payment and refund (3.7 out of 5 points) was the lowest among the five survey items. Additionally, 17.3% (156 people) reported experiencing inconvenience while using the kiosks, with the highest reason for inconvenience being "poor barcode recognition of products," accounting for 53.8% (84 people).

Security for entry was also found to be insufficient. According to a field survey conducted by the Consumer Agency from August to September last year on 30 unmanned ice cream stores in the Seoul metropolitan and Chungcheong areas, all stores operated 24 hours a day but had no restrictions on entry. Compared to major unmanned convenience stores in Korea that allow entry only after personal credit card or QR code authentication, the Consumer Agency pointed out that the security system was somewhat lax.

Among the surveyed stores, three had installed and operated closed-circuit television (CCTV) inside the unmanned stores, but the Consumer Agency pointed out the need for improvement as there were no notices specifying the purpose and time of filming or contact information of the person responsible, which are required to be disclosed under the Personal Information Protection Act. Additionally, regarding compensation-related terms and conditions, 22 stores did not notify the compensation amount in case of crimes such as theft, and 8 stores set compensation amounts ranging from a minimum of 30 times to a maximum of 100 times without unified standards, resulting in inconsistency.

Based on the results of this investigation, the Consumer Agency recommended that unmanned store operators introduce authentication equipment to manage user entry and other aspects. Furthermore, they plan to strengthen education and information provision on precautions related to the use of unmanned stores, especially targeting adolescents.

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