Charged Fraudulent SPAM Call

‘You’ve got a music message.’

Lee Seong-Ho, an office worker pressed ‘OK’ button of the mobile phone hesitatingly seeing the short message in his mobile phone. The call was connected to 060-XXX-XXXX. However, instead of the music, the phone said ‘Press No. 1 to use a fortune information’. The announcement of a charged service was heard. As soon as it is connected, the service fee of 1000 won per 30 seconds is charged automatically.

Like Mr. Lee, many customers have been fooled by ‘Fraudulent advertisement message’ sent by various mobile paid service companies and have to be charge for the service fee. However, the communication companies have made the service agreement with the message service companies and have winked at their expedient business for an immediate profit.

The reports on ‘fraudulent voice message accepted by Consumers Union of Korea increased to 20cases in July and August respectively from 5~6 cases each month before July. Many customers have suffered from damage.

The cases of consumer damage have been reported continuously to Korea Consumer Protection Board (KCPB). The police official said “There are approx. 60,000 SPAM messages which the mobile companies send a day.”

These fraudulent voice messages are very prosperous because there is no provision to restrict them and communication companies neglect the post supervision although they have to restrict the business of the charged service companies freely.

According to domestic communication companies, there are 2,200 charged service companies which agreed with communication companies. These companies made the contract of the telephone information service with domestic communication companies such as KT, Dacom, Hanaro Telecom and ONSE Telecom, and have provided a variety of information including stocks, fortune, weather and traffic, by using a line of the communication company.

Because they share the profits for the line service fee, collection commission of information service fee and the calling rates with the charged service companies out of information charge of 1,000 won per 30 seconds, they have attracted the charged service companies by easing the restriction and lending the line indiscreetly.

However, the charged service companies have collected the information fee unreasonably from subscribers of the charged service after sending the fraudulent short message of a large capacity by using a forwarding program of random short messages.

The official of one communication company said “Communication companies which got into the business of the telephone information service late have eased the restriction to attract the charged service companies. They have blinked at expedient business of the charged service companies.”

Min-Hyuk Park mhpark@donga.com