"I Never Used It": Wave of Unauthorized Charges Linked to '299,000 Won' Text Messages

[Anchor]

Recently, there has been a series of unauthorized charges of 299,000 won appearing from the AI service ChatGPT. So far, more than 800 cases of damage have been confirmed.

Reporter Lee Tae-kwon has the story.

[Reporter]

An office worker surnamed Lee received a text message on June 3 notifying them that 299,000 won had been charged to their debit card.

It was a charge for a one-month subscription to the most expensive 'Pro' plan for ChatGPT, a generative AI service the victim had never even used.

[Lee/Victim of unauthorized charge: I had never entered my card number, but suddenly it was charged... I was really scared. I was worried that this might happen with my other cards as well.]

Since the beginning of this month, 1,368 payments for ChatGPT Pro plans have been made in Korea, totaling approximately 400 million won.

Of these, 858 cases, amounting to about 250 million won, have been identified as suspected fraudulent transactions.

It has been determined that the payments were processed through nine major credit card companies, including Lotte, NH Nonghyup, and KB Kookmin.

Payments can be made by entering a card number, expiration date, date of birth, and the first two digits of the PIN. It is presumed that someone obtained this information to carry out the transactions.

[Hwang Seok-jin/Professor at Dongguk University's Graduate School of Information Security: They might be checking whether a card number is valid or not, or they could be generating revenue by bundling these cards and selling them as packages after making the payments.]

OpenAI, the operator of ChatGPT, stated, "It is not that ChatGPT initiated payments without user consent, but rather that stolen card information was used without authorization," adding that they have "deactivated the payment methods in question."

NICE Information & Telecommunications, OpenAI's domestic payment gateway provider, explained that they have cancelled approximately 700 of the suspected fraudulent transactions and are currently reviewing the remaining cases.

The company also announced that it has temporarily suspended additional payments and new card registrations, and plans to implement an additional mobile phone identity verification process.

The Financial Supervisory Service stated that it has requested credit card companies to strengthen their detection of abnormal transactions.

(Reported by Lee Moo-jin and Kim Han-gyeol | Video edited by Choi Jin-hwa | Graphics by Jegal Chan)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.