Timon, WeMakePrice Incident: Payments are blocked and refunds are not possible.

There was a delay in seller payment settlement at Timon and WeMakePrice. The payment settlement problem that had been a problem since last year was not resolved, and eventually the seller and payment agency withdrew. Consumers were not able to receive the goods or services they paid for, and they could not even get a refund. It seems that the repercussions will be much bigger than the MergePoint incident.

Open markets mediate products to consumers on behalf of sellers and receive payment. They periodically settle the cash received with sellers. Just like a bank, they need to keep a certain amount of cash, but Timon and WeMakePrice ran out of cash and were unable to pay sellers.

When settlements were not carried out normally, credit card payment agencies withdrew from Timon. Kakao Pay, Samsung Pay, Toss Pay, and mobile phone payments were blocked sequentially, and Timon Pay, the company’s own payment method, was also blocked. WeMakePrice, an affiliate, also lost its payment method.

Travel agencies such as Hana Tour, Modoo Tour, Kyowon Tour, and Yellow Balloon have not made payments for last month. The travel industry estimates that the unsettled payments are at least 100 billion won. From the consumer's perspective, the damage is expected to be even greater because the products require a lot of time, effort, and money.

This incident is believed to be largely due to the excessive expansion of Qexpress, a subsidiary of Quten, for its NASDAQ listing.

Quten is a joint venture between Koo Young-bae, the founder of Gmarket, and eBay, and is an e-commerce service based in Southeast Asia. It operates services in regions such as Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and China, and has also acquired many Korean companies, including Timon, WeMakePrice, and Interpark.

Q Express is a logistics subsidiary of Quten, and its performance increases as the logistics of the open market it owns increases. Quten has been forcibly acquiring the company in order to list Q Express on NASDAQ.

When cash was running low, Timon sold its gift certificates at a 10% discount. It was a strategy to increase sales by drawing cash, but it was not enough.