소비자상담과 소비자피해구제의 현황과 평가

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes in consumer counseling and consumer damage reliefs of the Korea Consumer Agency(KCA) and 1372 Consumer Counseling Network(CCN) after the implementation of the Consumers Act and analyze the awareness on consumer damage relief-related areas and tasks of consumer affair experts, activists, working-level staff, etc. This study analyzed a total of 120 sets of sample surveys on consumer affairs experts, activists, working-level staff, etc. as well as the consumer counseling data of 1372 CCN and KCA from 2007 to 2016. The study findings are summarized as follows; First, consumer counseling and consumer damage relief were found to have become far more frequent with the establishment of the 1372 CCN. In 2016, the consumer counseling frequency increased by 455,105(140.44%p), compared with that in 2007. And, the number of consumer damage relief increased by 13,482(57.5%p). Those in their 30s formed the largest age group in booth consumer counseling and consumer damage relief as their economic activities are active. The number of people in their 20s dropped but that of those in their 40s tended to increase. The KCA was found to receive customer counseling frequently via telephone and the Internet whereas 1372 CCN counseled through phone for most of the cases. Consumer damage reliefs were received by fax, post and homepages. In both consumer counseling and consumer damage relief, many of the counselling cases were related to contract, product quality, warranty service and unfair behaviors. The top 5 products involved in frequent consumer counseling were Internet-based service, mobile phone, smart phone, mobile phone service, condominium membership, and gym/fitness center. The 5 most frequent products of damage relief were easywear, shoes, laundry service, membership, and mobile communication. Second, the expert group was found to have generally low awareness levels on the degree of problem solution according to consumer problem type after the implementation of the Framework Act on Consumers, degree of enhancement in each area of consumer damage relief and degree of reinforcement of consumer damage relief-related laws(system); whereas the working-level group had higher awareness levels on them. However, the expert group showed higher awareness on the significance of tasks related to efficient consumer damage relief such as reinforced consumer damage prevention system, improved consumer damage relief scheme, improved consumer damage relief effectiveness, strengthened consumer damage relief specialty, expanded access to consumer damage relief; whereas the working-level group showed low awareness. To sum the findings for efficient consumer damage relief system, the No. 1 task to be dealt with was the reinforced consumer damage prevention system that recorded 73.42%, the highest; followed by strengthened consumer damage relief specialty, 65.8%; expanded access to consumer damage relief, 50.9%; advancement of consumer damage relief scheme, 44.2%; and improved consumer damage relief effectiveness, 40.9%.