The Scale of Secondhand Trading Scams Triples in Five Years
Fraudsters Lure Victims to Fake Sites and Demand Deposits
Recently, Mr. Kim (29) posted an ad on the secondhand trading platform ‘Junggonara’ to sell a jacket priced at 300,000 won, only to fall victim to a scam. Within five minutes, Mr. A approached him saying he wanted to buy the clothing and suggested making the transaction on ‘○○ Market’ (a fake secondhand trading site), claiming there was a discount coupon and offering to pay extra. Shortly after, Mr. A informed him that the payment had been completed. Later, Mr. Kim received a notification from the site administrator that the account number was incorrect and that he needed to send a deposit of 500,000 won to withdraw the money. Reluctantly, he transferred the money, only to realize later that it was a scam.
Recently, new types of scams have been rampant on online secondhand trading platforms. Scammers lure sellers to fake secondhand trading sites and then demand deposits under the pretext of ‘suspending accounts.’
According to the National Police Agency on the 12th, the scale of secondhand trading scam damages increased more than threefold from 89.7 billion won in 2020 to 334 billion won last year. During the same period, the arrest rate dropped from 78.6% to 56.3%. Police stations across the country are flooded with reports of secondhand trading scams, with damages ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of won. A National Police Agency official explained, “Cases need to be consolidated to enable provincial police agencies to lead investigations, but we have not yet reached that stage.”
On Junggonara, dozens of posts were uploaded on the same day reporting similar scam methods. Criminal organizations are changing domains to create fake secondhand trading sites with new names in real time, bypassing scam-sharing sites like The Cheat. There are dozens of fake secondhand trading sites that can be immediately confirmed, such as Sederi Market, Treasure Market, and Pureum Market. On the surface, they look no different from regular secondhand trading platforms.
Secondary damages are also occurring. Criminal organizations possess personal information such as home addresses and bank account numbers entered by victims when registering on fake secondhand trading sites. Some victims claim they have been threatened with “We will come to your home at night.” Mr. B, who suffered a loss of 2 million won, said, “I hope scammers who exploit ordinary people’s money are properly punished.”
A police official emphasized, “It is highly likely that these criminal organizations have bases overseas, such as in Southeast Asia,” and added, “We will make every effort to ensure arrests through international investigative cooperation requests, including Interpol notices.”
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