Tips for Intelligent Consumption

It's important to understand and assert our rights as consumers. There are many stores that ignore the rights of consumers, and YNO wants to look into the stores that try to get around consumer protection laws. We would also like to inform university students how they can assert their rights as consumers, how to take precautionary measures, and offer some legal information.

Many students may have experienced some of these consumer abuses at least once. For example, if you want to return inferior goods, some merchants reject your request, or when you purchase something through the internet, you sometimes receive inferior goods. In some of the worst cases, consumers get rooked or cheated when they shop on the internet.

Abuse of consumer rights is becoming more and more serious. The number of cases submitted to the Korea Consumer Agency are about 180~200 a day. As you can see on the chart, reports of abuse have increased by 30,000 over the last three years according to the Korea National Council of Consumer Organization. Moreover many internet users have been harmed by the rapid expansion of e-commerce and online transactions.

YNO surveyed some YU students about their experiences with consumer abuse. We asked students to consider different types of consumer abuse. 21% of the students we surveyed experienced merchant rejection of refunds. 13.5% of them were cheated on internet purchases. All of them experienced abuse at least once, but in most cases they didn't address the situation. We asked several students what they would do if they experienced abuse again. 43% of them knew about consumer rights, but 39.5% of them answered they would just leave it alone.

Consumers not knowing their rights is a problem that must be addressed sooner not later. Let's examine different types of consumer abuse and how to exercise our rights.

Shopping in Shopping Districts

When you go shopping, the first thing you should do is understand each stores return and exchange policies. By law every store must offer to repair, exchange, or give a refund for defective merchandise within 7 days of purchase. If a clothing store puts up a notice about exchange or refund policies, these policies must also be followed. When you buy industrial products, the law states you can repair faulty equipment for free up to one year.

"I just bought a piece of clothing one day ago, the clerk wouldn't give me a refund when I changed my mind" said Y.A. Lee 21 an engineering student. S.M. Hyun 21 told us, "I was confused by the clerk's attitude. She refused to give me a refund because I payed by credit card." If this happened to you what would you do?

Many stores can reserve the right to refuse repayment or exchange simply due to buyers remorse, but this can only be done if the store puts up a notice to that effect. However, if the store doesn't have a notice posted, you can ask for a refund or negotiate an agreement. If a clerk rejects a refund request, you can make a complaint to the Korea Consumer Agency which provides consumer counseling and offers different methods of settlement. If a merchant refuses a reasonable request, you should quote the laws protecting consumers.

Some clothes show their poor quality after they are washed for the first time. In this case, you can take the defective article of clothing and a normal article of clothing to the consumer protection agency for comparison. A rule for determining inferior quality in denim and other fabrics is whether or not the fabric changes in size by more that 3% after the first washing.

Refusal of Credit Cards

University towns have many clothing stores, bars, and beauty salons. Some people use cash, but others pay by credit card for the sake of convenience. However, certain places refuse credit cards or offer discounts for cash payment. Even though this practice is illegal, many merchants still try to get away with it.

One month ago, a student experienced a blatant case. She got a haircut at a salon in front of the university, and she was going to pay by credit card. The salon demanded more than the cash price as a surcharge for using a credit card. Whenever you use a credit card in a store the merchant must pay a service fee to the credit card company. The merchant tries to pass this fee to the consumer by charging a surcharge for credit card use. It is clearly illegal to charge this kind of additional fee to credit card users. If this happens to you report the incident to the Monitors for Illegal Transactions in Financial Supervisory Service (02-3771-5950 2) and The Credit Finance Association (02-2011-0777).

Besides being illegal, it is simply inconvenient in some cases when we are not allowed to pay with a credit card. It is not always easy to carry large sums of cash with you when you go shopping. Credit cards are easier to use, and there are also other advantages to using credit cards for purchases. For example, we can receive tax refunds if we use our credit cards. The government encourages credit card use, but there are inconsistencies in their policies as well. For example, they do not accept credit card payments for taxes.

The university also refuses credit card payments. We cannot pay tuition by credit card. Some students said that if they could pay by credit card, it would be more convenient. Using installment payment plans offered by many credit card companies would be helpful to students and the parents of students to spread the cost of tuition over a longer period of time.

At E-Commerce Websites

"I bought goods on the internet and changed my mind. I wanted a refund, but the internet site gave me a credit. It is useless to me," said S.Y. Yoon 20. "I got angry because the site didn't post any notice about availability of stock or their return policy after I paid. What I received was not what I ordered," said Y.G. Kim 20.

You may identify with these cases. As online transactions increase, the online abuses are increasing. A complaint system must be created to prevent abuse. It's possible to exchange and receive refunds for goods purchased within seven days, according to the Electronic Commerce Law.

Some people are confused by the many regulations set by each internet shopping mall. You should know that the web site's regulations are not legally binding. You can claim refunds or exchanges by law. If the mall rejects your demands, you can report them. When the goods that are delivered are wrong, or you don't receive exactly the goods we ordered, or the e-merchant disappears, or when you try to address problems with orders you should report the situation to the Korea Consumer Agency within 7 days of receiving your order.

Dealing directly on the internet can also be dangerous. There are many cases that turn out to be gigantic swindles. Some people buy notebooks, but receive bricks. The fact that such things like these happen is a very serious problem. If you get swindled, you can report the damage to the bank and request suspension of payment and apply for a refund. Then, you have to look into the phone messages, and track down the phone service center. You can present the messages as evidence to the police.

Here are some useful tips to protect your rights as a consumer. It's good to keep receipts and labels for cash transactions. If you are concerned about being able to get a refund, ask the clerk at once about refunds and exchanges. When you shop directly from internet sites, you should always watch out and inquire about anything that looks suspicious. Finally, It's important to use credit cards. Paying by credit card creates an expenditure record and it's more safe. We can also use escrow services which look into consumer safety, and are also helpful when we pay by cash.

These sites have valuable information for consumers. We can look into consumer rights information at the Korea Consumer Agency (http://www.kca.go.kr), and go through the frequently asked questions. The Cheat (http://www.thecheat.co.kr), is a website that lets you report online cheat cases, and shares information about common swindles on internet sites.

We live in a huge consumer society and the places we can buy and sell goods are various; from the street to the internet, and everywhere in between. So we have to try to defend our rights by inquiring into compensation regulations for consumers and learning as much as we can about different types of abuse. It's good to share experiences with other people. However, all of these efforts are in vain if merchants don't make it a point to sell goods conscientiously. It is also important that the government backs consumers up. A careful consumer, honest merchants, and the government's support are necessary to make shopping safe and ideal.

Min-Ju Kim