29,000 Voucher-Inclusive Cancellations
Card, PG, and Easy Payment Companies Begin Refund Procedures
Seller Settlement Funds Still an Issue
Consumer refunds on e-commerce platforms Tmon and Wemakeprice are gaining momentum. The refund delay issue, which had sparked strong backlash, is showing signs of resolution, easing consumer anxiety. However, the root cause of the problem, a large-scale delay in settlement of sales proceeds, remains unresolved, and the issue is expected to persist for the time being.
As of the morning of the 28th, Tmon announced that it had canceled 600 orders and proceeded with the refund process. From the 26th over two days, 24,600 pre-orders of book and cultural gift certificates were also canceled.
The cancellation of book and cultural gift certificate orders was carried out with the cooperation of electronic payment gateway (PG) companies, with cancellation amounts totaling 10.8 billion KRW: approximately 2.6 billion KRW from KG Inicis, about 4.2 billion KRW from Nice Payments, and around 4 billion KRW from KCP and KICC (Korea Information & Communication), respectively. It takes about 3 to 5 days from order cancellation to actual refund. Consumer refunds are expected to be completed by the end of this week at the latest.
Wemakeprice also completed refund procedures for 3,500 cases by the morning of the same day through both on-site and online submissions. Including gift certificates, about 29,000 cancellations have been processed on Tmon and Wemakeprice.
The settlement delay issue that started at Wemakeprice, an online shopping mall operated by Qoo10 Group headquartered in Singapore, is spreading to TMON. On the 24th, citizens are passing by the TMON building in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jo Yongjun jun21@
The speed of consumer refunds is expected to accelerate further. This is because, following requests from financial authorities, simple payment companies and PG companies will begin processing cancellations of Tmon and Wemakeprice payment transactions starting this week.
The cancellation and refund procedures by simple payment companies have begun. Naver Financial has started accepting cancellation and refund requests for payments made via Naver Pay on Tmon and Wemakeprice from the morning of this day. Toss Pay also initiated the objection application process to support refund procedures through the Toss app, KakaoTalk, and customer centers. Kakao Pay has also opened cancellation reception channels for Tmon and Wemakeprice payments.
Among PG companies, Toss Payments is scheduled to start accepting objection applications from 8 a.m. on the 29th. Most other PG companies are expected to begin payment cancellation or objection application procedures within this week.
While the consumer refund issue has found a breakthrough, the seller problem remains. Concerns are rising over a chain bankruptcy of small and medium-sized merchants due to delayed settlements. According to financial authorities, as of the 22nd, unsettled amounts stand at 56.5 billion KRW for 195 companies on Wemakeprice and 109.7 billion KRW for 750 companies on Tmon. These are unsettled sales proceeds from May. If unsettled amounts from June and July are added, the scale is expected to grow even larger.
Qoo10 reportedly informed financial authorities of plans to raise 50 million USD (approximately 70 billion KRW) next month through the overseas e-commerce platform Wish. However, this amount is insufficient to resolve the unsettled payment issue.
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