Celebrities’ shopping malls punished for false hype

Singer Baek Ji-young

Popular Internet shopping malls owned by entertainers were slapped with hefty fines for running fraudulent promotional campaigns to lure customers and for refusing to process legitimate refund claims, the fair trade regulator said Monday.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said six shopping malls were found guilty of violating the fair trade law and they were fined a combined 38 million won ($33,200), with each financial penalty ranging from 4 million up to 10 million won.

They were ordered to stop using what the FTC described as “deceptive” methods of promotion and post a letter of apology on their website for one week.

The entertainers who own the shopping malls are actress Jin Jae-young, singer Baek Ji-young, singer Yu-ri (real name is Cha Hyun-ok), singer Hwang Hye-young, actress Han Yae-in, singer Kim Joon-hee, model and actor Kim Yong-pyo.

Actress Jin Jae-young

“They took advantage of their popularity and media exposure in luring media-conscious young people to their shopping mall websites and financially benefitted from this. But they neglected to abide by the law,” the FTC said in a statement. “We will intensify the monitoring of shopping malls connected with celebrities and entertainers.”

The six shopping malls were all found guilty of denying legitimate refund claims, the FTC said.

A shopping mall, jointly owned by Baek Ji-young and Yu-ri, confirmed that employees wrote nearly 1,000 complimentary messages on the site’s bulletin board exaggerating the quality of the products and services, a practice which is illegal.

Another mall, run by Kim Joon-hee, was found to have unilaterally selected VIP customers to provide free gifts in a promotional event, in which the company said the gifts would be given to randomly-selected people.

A mall owned by Hwang Hye-young deleted dozens of postings critical of its products and services without the permission of those who posted them.

More entertainers have opened namesake shopping malls online in an effort to gain extra profit. As of March, there were 136 online shopping malls owned by entertainers, up 8.8 percent from 125 a year earlier, according to Rankey.Com, an Internet marketing research firm. <The Korea Times/Park Si-soo>

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