Starting from last year, Shopee use K-Pop as one of its leading promotion campaign. It chose Blackpink, among other K-Pop group as the brand ambassador of the e-commerce platform. But it all started to go wrong first in Indonesia and now in Philippines with Shopeescam trending on Twitter.
Shopeescam: how it all started
Shopee promises an exclusive meet and greet session, signed albums and merchandise from the Korean girl group. It announced it would choose 568 top spenders for the fan-meeting session. Then it would choose another top 40 spenders to be onstage with the idol and get autographs from them.
But when D-Day came a week ago, 116 chosen spenders failed on entering the fan-meet location. They found out that their names are no longer on the winner list of the event. Even though they clearly got the notification from Shopee weeks earlier.
More shockingly, fans noticed many local social media influencers queued the line for meeting Blackpink. They allegedly accused Shopee of favoring the influencers without actualy being a top spender. Fans anger got Shopeescam trends on Twitter worldwide.
Shopee Philippines soon released an apology upon the event. It stated that it is reaching out to the people affected by the issue and it is taking step to ensure it would not occur again in the future.
The Department of Trade and Industry Philippines quickly noticed this havoc. It suspected a violation of Consumer Act for the controversial promotion campaign.
If proven to be wrong, the company might have to pay $5,800 at the very least as a compensation. It can also be charged $5,800 more per complaint if it did run a deceitful sale.
Previously, the same promotional campaign ads got banned from local television in Indonesia. Government deemed the outfit the singer wore unfit for a public broadcast according to the country’s norm.
