The Korea Mobile Distributors Association said in April that Phoneparazzi was a system that considers every distributor to be a potential offender. (image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jun. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — Phoneparazzi, a compensation system to hunt down phone sellers who illegally give monetary support to customers, will be modified to draw compensation money from both mobile distributors and telecommunications carriers.
First introduced in June 2014, the Phoneparazzi system has been run by money solely provided by distributors. Anyone who reports illegal subsidies offered by phone vendors can receive 1 million to 10 million won (US$ 900 to 9,000) in compensation.
From this June, carriers and distributors will pay 1 million to 2 million won (US$ 900 to 1,800) in compensation at an 8:2 ratio, 3 million won (US$ 2,700) at a 7:3 ratio, 3 million to 5 million won (US$ 2,700 to 4,500) at a 6:4 ratio and 10 million won at a 5:5 ratio.
Fines to retail stores whose sellers are reported by phoneparazzi will be also eased. Fines will be imposed from the second offense.
A policy that enables carriers to deduct penalty points given to a retail store when the store committing the offense reports illegal activities of stores run by competitor carriers, will also be abolished.
Any reporting activities of workers at carriers and their agencies will be also banned.
The reasoning behind this modification is to cool down heated conflicts between carriers and distributors, which have increased in frequency and intensity under the existing Phoneparazzi system.
The Korea Mobile Distributors Association said at a press conference in April that Phoneparazzi was a system that considers every distributor to be a potential offender.
The association at the time announced that it would take legal action for being charged with excessive amounts of compensation money.
By Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
