Consumers Deceived
The Korea Fair Trade Commission uncovered that GM Korea sold fake free tinting coupons, calling the tinting coupons free offers.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) announced on March 12 that it ordered GM Korea to announce in newspapers that the local unit of US-based car maker fraudulently offered tinting coupons like complementary ones while fining GM Korea 60 million won.
It has been found that GM Korea offered tinting coupons to customers purchasing one of eight models running false and fake advertisements by using false expressions such as “the coupon is a free gift or a free premium tinting coupon for customers” from February 2013 to October 2014.
Cars that GM Korea sold with the fake free tinting coupons were Captiva, Trax, Cruise, Spark, Aveo, Orlando, Malibu and Alpheon among others.
GM Korea applied coupon prices of 60,000 to 70,000 won to prices of cars. It has been found that hiding this fact, GM Korea advertised that they were giving the tinting coupons as free gifts.
Consumers actually bought the coupons with the money, but their choices were limited because specific coupons were selected by GM Korea only, the FTC said.
Ten percent of consumers who receive such coupons did not use them because they think the coupons were actually free of charge although they were actually paid.
GM Korea has changed its sales policy so that consumers can get discounts unless they receive the tinting coupons since November, 2014.