Korea’s Fair Trade Commission said on Tuesday that it imposed punitive measures on the four biggest daily deal-site operators for their “deceptive” marketing.
The antitrust regulator levied a combined penalty fine of close to 100 million won ($93,000) against the four major social commerce companies: Coupang, We Make Price, Ticket Monster and Groupon.
The four were punished by the authority for posting false information including prices of products that were not included as part of their daily deal offerings, deceiving consumers.
For instance, Coupang, We Make Price, Ticket Monster and Groupon had listed overblown prices of their travel and water park packages, leading consumers to believe that those packages items included other products, the FTC said.
The antitrust regulator said the four had “repeatedly” used these kinds of deceptive methods to lure consumers to make purchases with incorrect pricing information.
Coupang, the country’s top deal-of-the-day website, and We Make Price, the third-biggest social commerce operator, were found to have posted false prices on their sites 44 and 40 times between January and June this year, respectively.
Meanwhile, Ticket Monster, Korea’s second largest daily deal site owned by LivingSocial, the second largest deal provider in the U.S., did so 26 times in the same period.
Groupon, the last of the four social commerce players, but the biggest in the U.S., posted false information 13 times in the first half of this year, according to the antitrust regulator.
The FTC said that it also ordered them to correct their wrongdoing, urging the four social commerce players to provide “fair” transactions for consumers.
The regulator added that it would alert the open market industry to abide by domestic electronic commercial laws through its punitive measures against the four daily deal sites.
