maingman
Joined: 26 Jan 2008 Location: left Korea
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Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 3:24 am Post subject: silly silly.. |
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Six hagwon franchises, including Wall Street Institute Korea, were slapped with fines yesterday for misrepresenting fees or issuing false ads.
The Korean Fair Trade Commission ordered them to pay a total of 167 million won in fines, a month after President Lee Myung-bak called for measures to curb excessive hagwon fees.
Five hagwon chains specializing in preparing students for admission to elite high schools were found to have coerced its offline students to take online courses as well.
A Ferma Edu branch in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, for instance, charges 88,000 won for an offline math course for eighth graders. But it required students signing up for its offline lessons to pay for its 182,000-won online courses as well.
Wall Street Institute Korea advertised a three-month course that did not exist for 1.55 million won to delude students to think it was giving a 46 percent discount for its nine-month program at 2.49 million won, the FTC said.
Four other hagwon issued false ads saying they had the largest number of elite high school students.
Some 66,421 people were found to be paying for lessons at 168 branches of the six chains - Ferma Edu, Topia Education, JLS, Yes Youngdo and Koreapolyschool - which teach elementary through high school students, and WSI which teaches adults English.
By Kim So-hyun
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