Olympic Coats

[Anchor Lead]

The PyeongChang Winter Olympics edition of long down coats is popular these days and sales of winter down jackets are on the rise. But consumers should be alert of fraudulent purchases made on foreign online shopping malls where these coats are sold at low prices.

[Pkg]

This person only identified by the surname Kim purchased a long Canadian down jacket from a foreign direct purchase Web site last week. Now she is distraught. She made a credit card purchase lured by the ad that a 780-thousand won coat was marked down at 300-thousand won. Now she can't even search for her purchase record.

[Soundbite] (Suspected Victim of fraudulent down coat purchase (Voice modified)) : "I bought it right away thinking others will be quick to buy too. I tried to confirm my purchase and see if I could cancel but the information did not exist."

These online sites selling winter down jackets have surged in number timed with the U.S. Black Friday shopping day. The sites lure consumers' impulse buying with massive discounts of up to 80%.

[Soundbite] (Suspected Victim of fraudulent down coat purchase (Voice modified)) : "It was a great deal. A down coat usually costs about KRW 1 Mn so the cost was nearly a tenth. I may have bought like three..."

Similar reports of damages suffered in Seoul alone this week number around 20 cases. These sites share some common traits. They have no contact information for customer service; it's impossible to cancel orders and payments are mainly made in the Chinese yuan instead of the US dollar.

[Soundbite] Im Joo-gyeong(Seoul Electronic Commerce Center) : "The servers are based overseas so we can't shut the sites down. In cooperation with related government agencies, we have currently blocked access to the sites."

The Seoul Metropolitan Government advises citizens to be suspicious of extremely cheap products and that paying with credit card over cash has higher chances of getting a refund.