It was revealed that some employees of online retailer Coupang took advantage of loopholes in the ordering system to steal hundreds of millions of won worth of goods and take unfair profits.
Today (20th), the Seoul Northern District Court No. 1-3 Criminal Division (Chief Noh Jin-young) is known to have conducted an appeal trial of a former Coupang employee in his 20s, who was charged with theft and fraud. Person A was sentenced to 3 years and 10 months in prison in the first trial.
Mr. A, who worked as a Coupang employee for about two years from 2017, was handed over to trial on charges of stealing about 100 million won worth of goods by exploiting loopholes in the ordering system.
Coupang allows an immediate refund if the customer cancels the order before receiving the product, but Mr. A took advantage of the loophole in the difficulty of tracking the returned item in this process.
Mr. A used someone else's ID to order a laptop, etc., immediately canceled and received a refund, and stole the item from the delivery car. It is said that the items that Mr. A stole over 40 times were expensive laptops, etc., and the price was said to be worth 100 million won.
This is not the first time Coupang has suffered from the mischief of its employees.
In September, the 3rd independent detective (Judge Lee Yoo-young) of the Seoul Eastern District Court sentenced former Coupang employee B (32), who was charged with theft, to two years in prison.
In June last year, Mr. B was indicted on charges of stealing a cargo pallet with a mobile phone valued at 784 million won using a pre-prepared truck while working as a warehouse manager at a logistics center in the metropolitan area of Coupang.
B sold the phone stolen by the truck for about 500 million won, and it was found that he spent 250 million won of this on renting a house.
In the course of the trial, Mr. B's side is known to have appealed for extenuating circumstances, saying, "I requested an improvement in the treatment of forklift drivers at the logistics center, but the company did not accept it."
However, the first trial court sentenced B to two years in prison, saying, "The quality of the crime, such as stealing an expensive cell phone using the manager's identity, is poor and the amount of damage is large."
Meanwhile, Coupang is continuing its highest sales as the trend of non-face-to-face transactions continues due to the spread of COVID-19 infection.
Coupang posted $4.478 billion in sales in the second quarter of this year, surpassing the KRW 5 trillion mark in quarterly sales for the first time, and $4.644.7 million in the third quarter. Won), breaking the record for the highest sales.
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