[Opinion] ‘The Cheat’

“This is the intellectual crime investigation team at Yeon-gi Police Station in South Chungcheong Province. We arrested a suspect surnamed Kim without warrant and are currently investigating him on online shopping fraud charges. We confirmed that there have been 130 victims. We would like to offer our words of encouragement to them,” wrote a police officer on ‘The Cheat (www.thecheat.co.kr),’ the biggest website for tracking down Internet crime in Korea. Replies to the post included: “It’s about time he was caught”; “Well done”; and “Can we get our money back?”

Kim Hwa-rang, an online businessman, has been a victim of small and big Internet frauds in the last decade. Sometimes, he received nothing from a supplier who took his money and left. Other times, the products he received were flimsy and unlike what had been advertised. In response, Mr. Kim set up ‘The Cheat’ last March to help track down online defrauders. By sharing each victim’s cases, Kim thought the site would be effective in not only finding the culprits, but also in preventing further crime.

‘The Cheat’ is now a massive success. With about 11,000 cases coming in, the website was able to organize a vast database with information on defrauders and their tricks. As a result, victims can search any related cases by typing in the personal information received from possible culprits, such as their name, e-mail addresses, and account numbers. A list of ‘popular’ defrauders’ name is even posted on the site. ‘The Cheat’ offers a legal counseling space and provides links to some 260 other communities run by individual victims to hunt down their swindlers.

Last month, 20 victims of the same defrauder put their information together and found out where he lived. When caught, some defrauders find no way out and upload messages saying that, “I will pay you back in a matter of days.”

According to the Seoul Electronic Commerce Center, the number of reported cases of cyber fraud increased from 5,602 in 2005 to 9,694 in 2006 as more and more Internet shopping malls opened up in the same period (rising from 35,048 to 47,736). It seems like ‘The Cheat’ has a bigger role to play in the evolution of the Internet.

Huh Mun-myeong, Editorial Writer, angelhuh@donga.com