"Used Goods Scams Resurge... 80,000 Cases Reported Until October This Year"

Yang Bu-nam "Need for System Improvement Including Strengthened Punishment"

Assemblyman Yang Bu-nam.

As direct transactions through secondhand trading platforms such as Danggeun Market and Junggonara have become more active recently, the number of fraud cases has surged, raising urgent calls for countermeasures.

According to an analysis of the "Secondhand Trading Fraud Occurrence Data" submitted by the National Police Agency to Yang Bu-nam, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea representing Gwangju Seo-gu Eul, on the 4th, the number of secondhand trading fraud cases reported from the beginning of this year until October reached 81,252 cases.

By month, the cases were 8,226 in January, 7,756 in February, 9,097 in March, 8,846 in April, 9,558 in May, 7,741 in June, 8,809 in July, 7,095 in August, 7,239 in September, and 6,885 in October, averaging about 8,000 cases per month.

If this trend continues, the total number of cases is expected to approach 100,000 by the end of this year, marking the highest level in four years. The annual number of secondhand trading fraud cases peaked at 123,168 in 2020, up from 89,797 in 2019. Since then, it showed a gradual decline with 84,107 cases in 2021, 79,052 in 2022, and 78,320 in 2023, but has turned upward again this year.

Representative Yang diagnosed that the police investigative personnel responsible for investigating the rapidly increasing secondhand trading fraud cases are effectively at "full capacity."

Yang said, "For frontline police officers, the workload of investigative departments has increased since the adjustment of investigative authority between the prosecution and the police, and the rise in secondhand trading fraud cases inevitably adds to the excessive workload," adding, "It is necessary to improve the system, including strengthening penalties for secondhand trading fraud."