Baek Ji-young leaves after mall controversy
27 Jul - After the controversy surrounding her online shopping mall, "I am Yuri" that she shared with COOL's singer Yuri, it was revealed that the songstress has left the management team.
In a report on Global Mnet website, the mall released their official apology to their customers and explained the reason due to Baek Ji-young's withdrawal from the company – stating that the singer wished to take responsibility for the recent scandal by leaving the company, its profit share, management and modelling.
The mall also apologised for disobeying the Fair Trade Commission by posting their public apology only seven days instead of the original two-week order.
They added, "Baek Ji-young already declared her wish to leave the team on 9 July, after the apology was released."
The official statement was released to clarify that the fault was made by their customer service department and not entirely by Baek Ji-young.
"During the five days from July 10 to 14, I Am Yuri posted its apology in a pop-up window on the webpage. However, several customers started to post on the review board that 'everything in the board is probably all false', to which an employee from the customer service team answered, 'We have deleted all of the falsified reviews, and the official apology has been up for two weeks in a pop-up.'"
It explained, "The employee had made a mistake in calculating the number of days even though the notice had only been up for five days, thus leaving a mistaken comment and causing Miss Baek Ji-young to get another beating."
The online mall also promised that they will discuss plans to try and compensate their customers and to work hard to re-establish the company.
On 21 July, it was reported that Baek Ji-young and COOL Yuri's online store, "I Am Yuri" violated the electronic commerce law for using false and deceptive means to attract customers.
The Fair Trade Commission revealed that the website violated the electronic commerce law that prohibits using false, exaggerated or deceptive means to attract customers. Five other online malls including Han Ye-jin's "Shopgirls", Kim Jun-hee's "Evajunie" and Hwang Hye-young's "Amai" were also caught for violating the same law, and were all fined between KRW 4 million to 10 million.
However, Baek Ji-young and Yuri's shopping mall have further created distrust since the original accusation when they allegedly miss stated the length of time the apology notice had been posted on the site.
