AliExpress showed Korean shoppers phantom 'original' prices — ₩2.1B fine

On 31 August 2025 the Korea Fair Trade Commission fined two AliExpress affiliates for misleading Korean consumers with false discounts. Ocean Sky and MICTW were ordered to pay a combined ₩2.1 billion and to make a public announcement admitting the deception.

Between May 2023 and October 2024 the two affiliates listed inflated 'reference' prices on roughly 7,500 products and claimed discounts that were never actually offered. Ocean Sky was fined for 2,422 products and MICTW for about 5,000. The KFTC gave an example of a product advertised at a 58% discount off a regular price of 660,000 won — a price at which the item had never been sold.

The KFTC found the practice distorted consumers' rational purchasing decisions by making them overestimate the real value of a product or the size of a discount. It also imposed corrective orders on the two affiliates, including a four-day public announcement order.

Separately, the KFTC fined Alibaba's operating companies — Alibaba Singapore and AliExpress Korea — ₩2 million each for violating the obligation to disclose their business identity under Korea's E-commerce Act, including failing to register as mail-order operators and to tell consumers they were not a party to the transactions.