Card Company Sold Personal Information

The police caught the criminals who obtained personal credit information of around 100,000 people and made more than 2 billion won.

The Central Police Station of Seoul put three people in custody including Mr. Suh (37), who bought personal credit information from a membership discount card company and made up phony sales slips showing that those individuals bought goods from internet shopping malls and collect a large sum of money from card companies.

The police also put 8 people in custody including Mr. Kim (38), who brought forged credit cards from overseas into Korea and used to buy goods and collect money.

According to the Police, Mr. Suh and others bought credit information of 1,200 members from the head of the H membership discount card company, Mr. Chung (40. confined), and collected total of around 1,559,000,000 won from credit card companies in 1,600 times creating phony sales slips showing those individuals bought goods from 5 internet shopping malls they managed.

The police investigation shows that the H membership card company was the company that gave discount price of condominiums or hotels to the paid members, and after filing bankruptcy last November, it sold individual credit information with ten thousand one per person.

Mr. Suh and others were known to collect individual credit information in big volume like buying credit information of 100,000 people with 5,000 ~ 10,000 won per person from private loaners in Dongdaemoon and Kangnam of Seoul and Sihung of Kyongki.

Mr. Suh, with the confined Mr. Kim, bought around 120 forged credit cards from Thailand for a million won a piece, and collected around one billion won using the cards to buy goods and get cash in illegal ways.

The Police said, “You must be careful not to expose your credit information when you join the membership discount card service,” and “you better not giving your card to others when you use your card in overseas.”

Sun-Woo Kim sublime@donga.com