[Anchor]

A travel agency well-known for youth educational tours abruptly shut its doors early last month. It cited a police investigation as the reason. Thousands of customers are now left unable to take their trips and unable to get back the money they paid in advance.

Reporter Yoo Soo-Hwan has more.

[Anchor]

Son Bong-seok booked a trip to Europe for this month and another to the United States for February of next year through the travel agency Andersen back in June of last year.

He had already wired all the costs, including travel expenses, to the agency, but on the 5th of last month, he received shocking news.

The agency suddenly announced the suspension of its operations via a notice on its website.

The notice stated that "all travel is suspended" due to a police raid on its office.

Police stated that they are investigating ties between the travel agency and current and former officials of the Minjung Democracy Party who were indicted for violating the National Security Act.

[Son Bong-seok / Victim of Andersen Travel Agency: When I calculated my case, the (damage amount) came out to about 17 million won. They say the raid happened because of political issues, but why should I be dragged into that political fight?]

According to victims' own tally, the number of affected individuals is about 9,000, with total damages exceeding 29.5 billion won.

The damage was exacerbated because the travel agency sold packages requiring full cash payment a year in advance in exchange for discounts.

[Victim of Andersen Travel Agency: My child is an elementary school student, and the kid was so excited. We booked it because we wanted to go to (France) with our child despite our tight budget...]

Damages ranged across various situations: from cases where travelers had already departed, had their itineraries halted locally, and returned home after paying extra out of pocket, to those who were notified of cancellations at the airport just before departure.

[Son Bong-seok / Victim of Andersen Travel Agency: They received a text notification while eating at Incheon Airport. They were told that tomorrow's trip was canceled, and it was so hard to break the news to the children.]

The travel agency has been guiding customers by stating, "We will normalize operations in two years" and "Prepayments will be transferred to other travel products," but victims are demanding immediate refunds and preparing to file a class-action lawsuit.

(Video by Lee Chan-soo | Video Editing by Lee Hong-myung)