Seoul: South Korea's antitrust watchdog has imposed a fine on the Chinese e-commerce platform, Temu, for misleading South Korean consumers through deceptive promotional campaigns. This marks the first regulatory sanction imposed on Temu by the agency.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) announced a fine of 357 million won (approximately US$260,000) on Temu for violating the law governing fair advertising. The FTC also issued an order for corrective measures to be implemented.
The issue arose when Temu advertised that users could easily receive cash-equivalent reward points by engaging with a roulette-style game. However, users soon discovered that they needed to fulfill complex conditions, such as inviting multiple friends, to receive the rewards.
An FTC official explained that consumers usually decide to participate in promotions based on the initial advertising messages. However, in Temu's case, the true requirements were only revealed after users had invested a significant amount of time and effort.
In a separate violation, the FTC imposed an additional fine of 1 million won on Temu for failing to display business identity information and terms of service clearly on the main page of their website, as required by the commerce act.