"I'm Paying for 'Pro'?"... Surge in Unauthorized ChatGPT Charges

[Anchor]

Recently, there has been a series of incidents where expensive ChatGPT subscription plans have been charged without the users' knowledge. So far, more than 800 cases of such damages have been identified.

Reporter Lee Tae-kwon has the story.

[Reporter]

Office worker surnamed Lee received a text message on June 3 notifying 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 of the generative AI ChatGPT, a service the user had never even used.

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

This month, a total of 1,368 payments for ChatGPT Pro plans, amounting to approximately 400 million won, were made in Korea.

Among these, 858 cases, totaling about 250 million won, have been identified as suspected fraudulent transactions.

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

Payments can be processed by entering a card number, expiration date, date of birth, and the first two digits of the card's PIN. It is presumed that someone obtained this information to make the unauthorized charges.

[Hwang Seok-jin/Professor at Dongguk University's Graduate School of Information Security: There are instances where they check if a card number is valid or just a random number, and they might be generating profit by bundling these after making the payments and selling them as a package.]

OpenAI, the operator of ChatGPT, stated, "It has been confirmed that ChatGPT did not initiate charges without user consent, but rather that stolen card information was used without authorization," adding that "the affected payment methods have been deactivated."

NICE Information & Telecommunication, OpenAI's domestic payment gateway provider, also explained that they have canceled about 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 introduce 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.