Many Korean loan consultants sell customers’ personal data
A 42-year-old public servant who asked to be identified only by his surname, Kim, complains that his phone receives five to six spam text messages a day, promising, “You can get an immediate loan” or “up to 30 million won is available.”
“I suspect that my personal information including my cell phone number was leaked when I took out loans from a bank through a loan consultant last year,” he said.
Trading of private customer information, especially in the financial industry, has become a serious issue in Korea in recent years. Sellers of the data could be hackers, workers at the companies that manage the information or even loan consultants themselves.
