Even after the abolition of the Single Tong Act, 3,000 retailers were sanctioned... Half violate cost notices

1,659 out of 3,050 retailers were sanctioned... Violation of notices in August was 2.8 times higher than the previous year.

Lee Yeon-hee "Retailer notification obligations and unfair advertising must be checked"

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Hyunmin Yoo = Even after the abolition of the Terminal Distribution Structure Improvement Act (Smartphone Act), pre-approval sanctions against mobile communication stores continued, and it was found that the violation of failing to distinguish and notify the cost of purchasing a terminal accounted for more than half of the total sanctions.

According to data submitted by Lee Yeon-hee of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting and Communications Committee of the National Assembly, from the Korea Media and Communications Committee on the 11th, a total of 3,050 cases of prior approval of retailers were sanctioned from July 23 last year, the day after the abolition of the Mobile Communications Act, to September 16 this year.

By type, violations of purchase cost classification notices were the most common, at 1,659 (54.4%). This was followed by 638 other cases, 393 cases of non-posting of prior consent, and 360 cases of mobile opening.

There were 1,182 violations of purchase cost classification notices from January to September 16 of this year. By month, August had the highest number of cases at 242, which was about 2.8 times the number of 87 cases in the same month last year. There were 164 and 160 cases in March and July, respectively.

The Korea-U.S. Unification Committee stated that it does not separately manage the specific details of violation of purchase cost classification notification.

However, representative examples include advertising without distinguishing between the entity and size of the subsidy payment, or combining rate discounts and terminal discounts and displaying only the total discount amount. This also applies to advertisements that omit important terms of use, such as rate plans or contract periods.

With the abolition of the Dantong Act, excessive payment of subsidies, violation of the obligation to disclose subsidies, and differential subsidies by subscription type are no longer managed as violations of related laws.

However, forcing people to sign up for a specific rate plan or additional service, false or exaggerated advertising, and refusal to sign up for an optional contract may all be violations of the current Telecommunications Business Act.

Rep. Lee said, "Even after the abolition of the Mobile Phone Act, we need to check retailers' notification obligations and unfair advertising so that consumers can accurately know the actual costs they bear during the process of purchasing a terminal," and added, "There is a need to closely examine the types of violations and the status of each business operator to reduce damage to users."