62% points for accruals, short expiration date of 1-3 years...insufficient advance guidance

It was found that the expiration date of distribution, restaurant, and clothing store points, which are frequently used in the daily lives of the people, was too short and prior notice of extinction was insufficient.

According to a survey by the Fair Trade Commission and the Korea Consumer Agency on the operation status of 50 accumulated points from 41 companies, the validity period of 31 points, or 62%, was less than three years.

According to the Commercial Act, only 19 points, 38% of which stipulated the extinctive prescription as 5 years by applying mutatis mutandis to the 5-year extinctive prescription for bonds due to commercial transactions.

In addition, the procedure for notifying in advance that the points will expire after the expiration date of the 46 points, which is 92%, was insufficient.

The Fair Trade Commission said that points are also the property of consumers, and in an industry meeting, the expiration date of points was increased sequentially to three to five years, and consumers were faithfully notified before the expiration of the expiration date.

In particular, 11 (22%) in the survey did not have a notification obligation regulation itself in the terms and conditions, and 28 (72%) had only one channel to inform consumers.

In addition, 10 were notified in less than 30 days, indicating that consumers did not have enough time to use points.

The FTC explained that the expiration date of bonds under the Commercial Act is basically five years, but the expiration date of points is not legally compulsory, and that it has been increased to three to five years in consideration of the industry's burden of being held as a debt in accounting.

He also explained that operators have decided to specify notification regulations in their terms and conditions and diversify their notification channels to e-mail, Kakao notification talk, and app push.

The timing and number of points extinction notices were also decided to be notified three times two months ago, one month ago, and three days ago.

The FTC estimated that 13.2 billion points are lost every year in the distribution sector alone.