Korea's antitrust regulator has penalized Duo, one of the country's largest matchmaking companies, for advertising that more of its fee-paying members were doctors, lawyers or graduates of "prestigious universities" than at any competitor, without ever checking its rivals' memberships.
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said Wednesday it issued a corrective order to Duo and imposed a penalty of 345 million won ($250,000) for false and exaggerated advertising.
Duo has used claims such as "5,135 professionals, the most in the industry" and "16,479 members from prestigious universities, the most in the industry" in online articles and on its website since November 2022.
Matchmaking companies in Korea charge fees to enroll members and introduce them to prospective marriage partners. What those members do for a living and where they studied are among the factors that weigh most heavily on which service a consumer picks, the FTC said.
The regulator found that Duo counted those members using criteria it set itself but never surveyed competitors' memberships for comparison. It had no objective data supporting its claim that the figures were the highest in the industry.
Duo counted doctors, lawyers, accountants and tax accountants as "professionals." It classified medical schools, universities in Seoul and the capital region, regional national universities and military academies as "prestigious universities."
The company also inflated the number of specialist managers it employed to...
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