Seller Scammed in Secondhand Trade... "Tried to Sell for 100,000 Won, Lost 360,000 Won"

A New Type of Phishing Scam Where Buyers Lure Sellers to External Sites
Demanding Deposits and Sale Amounts

On a secondhand trading platform, a seller was scammed by a buyer. The buyer lured the seller to another site and tricked them into prepaying a deposit and the sale amount, thereby stealing the money.

On the 17th, Yonhap News reported the story of Mr. Jeong (31), who was scammed while using the secondhand trading platform 'Junggonara' on the 7th. Mr. Jeong tried to sell a piano he used on the platform for 100,000 won but was instead scammed out of 360,000 won by the buyer. While it is common for sellers to scam buyers in secondhand transactions, it is rare for buyers to scam sellers; in this case, the seller was the victim of the buyer.

A scam involving a phishing site connection occurred on the secondhand trading platform 'Junggonara.' Photo by Yonhap News reader

Mr. Jeong told Yonhap News, "I posted that I was selling a piano for 100,000 won on Junggonara, and shortly after, I received a message from someone wanting to buy it." He explained, "The buyer requested that I register the item on another site called 'Lodershop12H' because they wanted to use points to purchase it there." Mr. Jeong followed the buyer's instructions and registered the item on that site.

He said, "On that site, they told me that to receive the sale amount in cash transfer, I had to prepay about 120,000 won, which included the sale amount and a deposit, so I transferred that amount." However, the site's customer service representative claimed, "Due to a recognition error of the deposited amount, the account has been frozen. To unfreeze it, you need to deposit an additional amount," and repeatedly demanded more payments. Following these instructions, Mr. Jeong deposited a total of 360,000 won, but the site representative then pressured him to deposit an additional 1,000,000 won as a deposit. Only then did Mr. Jeong realize it was a scam, stopped the transaction, and reported the site and account to the police, but he has yet to recover the lost funds. All communications related to the transaction reportedly took place via online chat on a Naver Cafe.

Cases of victims scammed by similar methods to Mr. Jeong’s have recently been reported one after another through social networking services (SNS).

Another victim, Mr. A, disclosed his scam experience on a Naver Cafe on the 4th. He said, "I posted a padding jacket for sale on Junggonara, and the buyer contacted me asking if they could purchase it on a Google site called 'Blueforest12H'." He added, "The buyer then said they purchased it with points and that if I converted the points to cash and received the payment into my account, it would be fine."

When Mr. A tried to receive the sale amount into his account, the site’s customer service representative informed him via online chat that "the account number has been frozen. To unfreeze it, you must deposit an amount equal to the sale price." Mr. A later searched the account number on 'The Cheat' and found that it was a scam account with more than six reports already filed.

A Junggonara official told Yonhap News, "We are aware that 'phishing site scams' that lure users to external links constitute a significant portion of scams occurring during secondhand transactions." They added, "On Junggonara’s own app and website, we monitor transaction chat rooms and provide scam risk alerts and impose restrictions on transactions when external link inducements are detected." However, they explained, "In the case of Naver Cafe, Junggonara does not have monitoring or sanction authority over Naver’s chat system, so we operate a scam inquiry service and a scam report board within the cafe instead." They further stated, "To minimize scam transaction damage, we encourage transactions through Junggonara Safe Payment via app integration with the cafe."

Meanwhile, the financial fraud prevention service 'The Cheat' reported that the number of secondhand trading scam cases over the past five years increased from 245,500 cases in 2020 to 364,643 cases in 2024, an increase of about 120,000 cases in four years. The amount of damages also nearly doubled, from approximately 186.25 billion won in 2020 to about 356.51 billion won in 2024.