[2022 National Audit] To Receive Credit Card Benefits... SR Ticket Purchase and Cancellation Amounts to 25 Billion Won

Number of Malicious Refund Cases from 2017 to First Half of 2022: 489 Cases, 25.2 Billion KRW

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Min-young] It has been revealed that the amount of money refunded after purchasing and then canceling SR train tickets to receive credit card benefits reached 25 billion KRW.

According to the 'Malicious Refund Status from 2017 to the First Half of 2022' received by Kim Jeong-jae, a member of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the People Power Party, from SR on the 4th, the number of malicious refund cases abusing the refund service reached 489. They purchased tickets worth 26.9 billion KRW and received refunds amounting to 25.2 billion KRW.

Malicious refunds are defined as having an annual number of issued tickets of 500 or more and a cancellation refund rate of 70% or higher. Malicious refunders mainly repeated the act of purchasing a large number of tickets without cancellation fees to obtain card company partnership discounts based on the payment amount, and then returning them the following month.

Looking at the annual status based on malicious refund criteria, in 2017, malicious refunders purchased 16,054 tickets worth 722 million KRW and refunded 12,955 tickets worth 591.39 million KRW (refund rate 80.70%). However, in the following year, 2018, they purchased 65,354 tickets worth 2.6812 billion KRW and refunded 55,597 tickets worth 2.2143 billion KRW, and in 2021, they purchased 175,956 tickets worth 10.26377 billion KRW and refunded 9.8514 billion KRW.

While malicious refunders were maliciously exploiting SR’s low ticket cancellation fees, SR neglected to take action against this.

Member A alone purchased 25,009 tickets worth 1.87197 billion KRW from 2018 to this year and refunded 25,008 tickets worth 1.87196 billion KRW. The unrecovered amount was 10,000 KRW, with a refund rate of 99.99%.

This behavior continued even during holiday periods. Member B purchased 2,089 tickets worth 154.65 million KRW during the Lunar New Year period, then canceled all of them with no refund fees incurred. Member C also purchased and canceled 473 tickets worth 33.8 million KRW during the same period.

Assemblyman Kim Jeong-jae emphasized, "Such behavior, which harms many people while benefiting only oneself, must be met with corresponding disadvantages," and added, "SR should permanently revoke the membership of these malicious refunders and claim punitive damages."