Phishing Scams Trick Victims Into "Direct Payments," Making Card Compensation Difficult

[Anchor]

It is time for the Friendly Economy segment with reporter Han Jiyeon. Han, today (September 16) we are talking about phishing scams.

[Reporter]

These scams trick victims into making direct payments themselves.

Because they are processed as payments made by the cardholders themselves, it is often difficult to receive compensation from credit card companies.

In one case, a fraudster called a woman in her 70s while impersonating a financial company employee.

The scammer claimed there was an unknown past card transaction and warned that she would face credit disadvantages if she did not cancel it, tricking her into making a new payment of the exact same amount elsewhere.

The woman directly entered her card information, and 3.23 million won was charged by an illegal merchant.

In principle, relief is difficult when you make a direct payment, but fortunately, the payment in this case was cancelled after fraudulent sales by the merchant were confirmed.

What you must keep in mind here is that online payments do not require making another payment or incurring any fees to cancel, and unused payments will not result in credit disadvantages. Therefore, you should suspect such calls are scams.

There was also a romance scam.

A man in his 30s became close enough with a woman he met on a random chat app to plan an in-person meeting. The woman suddenly asked him to buy and cash out gift cards using his credit card because she needed money, resulting in him losing 4.5 million won.

If someone you met online asks you to wire money or buy gift cards under the pretext of hospital bills or living expenses, that is not romance, but a sign of a scam.

[Anchor]

Similar scams keep repeating, so it would be wise to develop the habit of questioning whether such requests are normal.

[Reporter]

That is correct. While previous efforts focused mainly on catching unauthorized transactions by third parties, authorities have decided to include payments directly made by victims in fraud monitoring moving forward.

The largest financial damage came from a side-job scam targeting a woman in her 20s.

She started a side job promising returns for ordering and paying for goods on behalf of others. Because she actually received money at first, she trusted the system and increased her payment amounts. Later, she even took out loans to make payments, but when the refunds stopped, she suffered a loss of 63 million won.

There was also a condo membership scam.

Fraudsters obtained card information under the pretext that a membership purchase was confirmed and charged 6 million won. However, the charged location turned out to be an unrelated large restaurant, and the restaurant owner had also been tricked into accepting the payment under the guise of receiving help to secure a loan.

The fraudster tricked both the cardholder and the merchant simultaneously to pocket the payment. Although the fraudulent sales were recognized and the card transaction was cancelled, only the merchant, who had already sent out the settlement funds, ended up losing money.

As these incidents repeat, the Financial Supervisory Service and credit card companies are introducing three new measures.

They will strengthen fraud detection criteria to catch instances where victims are tricked into making direct payments, and if senior citizens aged 70 or older attempt to purchase goods that are easily converted into cash and trigger a suspicious transaction alert, the transaction will not be approved immediately and will instead require consultation.

Additionally, for damages suspected of involving illegal merchants—much like illegal cash-out schemes—they plan to tighten complaint investigations into the payment processing procedures, such as whether goods were actually delivered.

[Anchor]

Lastly, it seems that new homes are not selling well in Jeju either.

[Reporter]

That is right. The number of unsold housing units in Jeju has surpassed 3,000 for the first time since relevant statistics began being compiled.

There was a time when demand from outsiders wanting to buy homes and live in Jeju for a month flocked to the island, but the situation has completely changed.

As of the end of last July, unsold housing units in Jeju stood at 3,303, marking a 13.5 percent increase in just a single month. The growth rate over the past three months reached 22.3 percent, significantly outpacing the nationwide increase rate of 1.1 percent during the same period.

What is even more serious is "malicious unsold housing," where properties remain unsold even after construction is fully completed. These account for 2,364 units, or 71.6 percent of the total—meaning 7 out of 10 unsold homes are already completed properties.

Even as unsold homes pile up, housing prices refuse to drop.

As of February of last year, the average price of private apartments in Jeju stood at 26.13 million won per 3.3 square meters, making it the second most expensive in the nation after Seoul.

On top of this, buying momentum from outsiders has weakened, and with a recent decline in domestic tourists, housing demand conditions have deteriorated further.

In fact, out of a 425-unit apartment complex in Aewol-eup last year, only a single unit was sold in less than a year after completion, while the remaining 424 units were put up for public auction. Another apartment complex in Aewol-eup even resorted to discount sales, slashing prices from the 600 million won range down to the 400 million won range.

Township and rural areas built to target outsiders took an especially hard hit, with units in those areas accounting for 56.8 percent of Jeju's total unsold inventory as of August of last year.

Housing units once built in anticipation of Jeju-living demand now remain as large-scale unsold inventories.

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