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You may remember Merge Point, which caused the refund to be suspended last year after charging money with an unlimited 20% discount.

The Consumer Agency has decided that shopping malls and convenience stores that sold Merge Points are also responsible and should pay compensation.

But it's unclear whether the victims will get their money back.



Reporter Jeong Hye-jin pointed out why.



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Last year, Mr. Kim came to know the merge point after seeing an advertisement on an online shopping mall he frequented.



[Mr. Kim / Merge Point Victim: At first, there is an online shopping mall that I often use, so I saw a 20% discount on Merge Point, and bought 1.2 million won in several places.]



In this way, I paid in advance and bought points 560,000 people were affected by the suspension, and the damage amounted to more than 250 billion won.



Of these, about 7,000 people applied for collective dispute mediation to the Consumer Agency, and a conclusion was reached within ten months.



Companies that link point transactions like shopping malls are also responsible for not verifying, so they should compensate for damages.



[Byun Ung-jae/Chairman of Consumer Dispute Mediation of Korea Consumer Agency: I hope that you will actively accept (the committee's decision) from the perspective of corporate social responsibility and narrowly from the perspective of corporate social responsibility, rather than simply viewing it as a legal issue.]



Limit of liability among damages also determined.



Mail-order sellers such as Kakao who made and sold electronic gift certificates such as coupons were asked to pay 60%, mail-order brokerage companies such as WeMakep, which traded these gift certificates, 30%, and convenience stores that sold them in card form, 20%.



However, it is unknown whether the victims will be compensated.



This is because these companies, which are already in civil action, are holding on to no liability.



[Dongwon Kang / Attorney for the Merge Point victim: (in the first trial earlier this month) Since e-commerce companies literally operated mail-order sales, they do not have any responsibility as an intermediary, and the direct responsibility lies with Merge Point.



] It is difficult to get money because the management has been arrested and is virtually out of business.



After all, victims have to win a long legal battle to get some money back.



(Video editing: Seung-Yeol Lee, VJ: Young-Sam Jeong)