Korea Railroad Corporation (hereinafter Korail) announced on the 21st that it will strengthen crackdowns on illegal (scalped) transactions of train tickets around the Chuseok holiday.
According to Korail, reselling already purchased train tickets at a higher price (scalping) is an illegal act violating the Railroad Business Act, and a fine of up to 5 million KRW may be imposed if the transaction is habitual or commercial.
Currently, Korail is focusing on monitoring in cooperation with major online secondhand trading platforms to delete posts suspected of illegal ticket transactions during the holiday season.
In particular, if there is evidence of unfairly securing or distributing tickets, Korail plans to respond strongly by requesting police investigations.
Korail's website and mobile app (KorailTalk) operate a permanent ‘Scalping Report Board’. If the report is confirmed as an actual scalping transaction, the reporter will receive a train discount coupon.
During the last Lunar New Year holiday, a total of 31 scalping reports were received. The related posts were immediately deleted, and reports that could identify sellers were referred to the police for investigation.
Korail also uses programs to prevent macro executions to stop unfair ticket hoarding. The main functions include prompting customers who repeatedly search the same route or perform certain actions continuously to enter special characters or restricting reservations for a certain period.
Earlier, Korail revised the ‘Passenger Transport Terms and Conditions’ last month to add conditions for membership withdrawal in cases of mass ticket purchases followed by cancellations or use of macro programs. The revision was made to prevent illegal ticket transactions.
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