Malicious customers who act unscrupulously, such as getting food back by lying, are calling the self-employed who are struggling with high prices and high interest rates twice.
On the 21st, Mr. A, who runs a snack shop in Seo-gu, Incheon, was deceived by his customer's lie and suffered an absurd incident of refunding the price of food in full.
A CCTV video inside the store showed two female customers, who are estimated to be in their 60s and 70s, ordering jjolmyeon and udon noodles.
At another seat, a middle-aged man was eating.
One of the female customers protested while eating the ordered food, pulling the other party's hair twice, putting them in a food bowl and taking them to her kitchen.
The embarrassed kitchen staff returned 12,000 won for the food to them.
The employee was wearing both a sanitary cap and a mask at the time.
When Mr. A heard about the situation, he got suspicious and looked at the CCTV video and found out that the hair coming out of the food was the customer's own play.
In a media call today (26th), Mr. A said, "I couldn't believe it even when I saw the video of a customer making a decision and pulling their hair out and putting it into food."
He continued, "He is contemplating whether to ask the police to investigate," he added.
As in the case of Mr. A, even if a customer maliciously requests a refund of food prices, it is not easy for the owner to verify the facts.
In particular, in-store meals can be seen even on CCTV, but there is a limit to covering the dispute in the case of delivery food.
A store owner who runs a delivery restaurant in Incheon said, "Even if we take utmost care to prevent foreign substances from entering the food and seal the packaging, we cannot completely prevent complaints." First of all, I apologize and I will refund you."
As if reflecting this situation, in a self-employed online community with over 1 million members, there are many self-helpful responses to every post asking how to respond to a request for a hair refund, saying, "It's easy to get a refund and forget it immediately."
One store owner complained, "There is a case where they requested a refund the day after delivery, saying 'the eyelashes came out of the food'.
Intentionally inserting foreign substances into normal food and requesting a refund is an act of deception and may constitute a crime of fraud under the Criminal Act.
In addition, if this leads to unreasonable demands, charges of coercion, blackmail and obstruction of business may be applied.
Seung Jae-hyeon, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Criminal Justice Policy, said, "It is important to protect consumer rights, but it is a different story if you are a malicious or illegal consumer."
(Photo = provided by the reader, Yonhap News)