A Woman in Her 20s Sentenced to Prison for Unauthorized Use of Gift Card Numbers Found on Secondhand Trading Sites

Repeated Use of Gift Cards by Identifying Pin Numbers Through Brightness Adjustment
Uijeongbu District Court Namyangju Branch Sentences to 1 Year and 4 Months Imprisonment

A woman in her 20s who habitually used gift card numbers obtained by adjusting the brightness of images posted on an online secondhand trading site was sentenced to prison.

On the 24th, Choi Chi-bong, a judge of the Criminal Division 1 at the Namyangju Branch of Uijeongbu District Court, announced that he sentenced Ms. A (29, female), who was indicted on charges of computer-related fraud, to two months and one year and four months in prison, respectively. Ms. A was prosecuted for accessing the secondhand trading site '○○ Market' on October 24, 2022, obtaining the PIN number of a 100,000 won gift card posted by Mr. B, and using it, among other similar methods, embezzling a total of approximately 1.4 million won worth of gift cards in 16 instances until January of this year.

The victims posted images of gift cards on the secondhand trading site, mostly covering the PIN numbers by painting over them in black before uploading. However, Ms. A committed these crimes by simply adjusting the brightness of the images without any special technique to reveal the PIN numbers.

Ms. A was previously sentenced to one year in prison for similar crimes and was released in October last year after serving her sentence. In October last year, she was sentenced to six months in prison with a two-year probation for another crime using the same method, and the appeal trial is currently ongoing. The court distinguished between the crimes committed during the period for which she had already been punished and those committed during the recidivism period, sentencing two separate terms accordingly.

The court pointed out, "The defendant caused harm to multiple victims using the same method since 2021, and despite receiving fines or imprisonment, committed the crimes again." Regarding the sentencing reasons, the court explained, "Considering that the defendant did not make sincere efforts to restore the damages and that the damages have not been properly compensated, appropriate punishment is necessary. However, the defendant admitted all the crimes and is remorseful, appeared to have committed the crimes to cover living expenses, and the amount of damage was not very large, which were taken into account."

Stories of people trying to use their own gifticons but being told at stores that the gifticon had "already been used" often appear on online communities. Usually, in such cases, the person posted the gifticon for sale on a secondhand trading site and then tried to use it themselves. Even if only part of the barcode’s end is exposed, it can be recognized if a straight line is visible.

Also, even barcodes that have been mosaicked or painted over can be restored and used by anyone, as in Ms. A’s crimes. Meanwhile, there have been cases where parts of barcodes from gifticon sale posts on secondhand trading sites were photographed, restored using photo editing apps, and then sold without authorization, requiring consumers to be cautious. A man in his 30s, Mr. B, who committed such crimes, was indicted in January on charges of computer-related fraud.

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