1. A private citizen filed with the FTC a complaint about momo Shopping Site claiming the market price of the "streamlined KYMCO GP125 scooter with drum brakes" being sold on the website was 73,000 New Taiwan dollars (same currency applies hereinafter) but the promotional price was only 54,500 dollars, and yet the price for the same product on the website of Kwang Yang Motor Co., Ltd. was 47,600 dollars. Fubon Multimedia Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Fubon Multimedia) was suspected of violating Article 21 of the Fair Trade Law.
2. Findings of the FTC after investigation:
   Between Mar. 7 and Jul. 28, 2017, Fubon Multimedia posted an advertisement on its momo Shopping Site for the "streamlined KYMCO GP125 scooter with drum brakes" and claimed the market price of the product was 73,000 dollars, giving the impression that the product had been sold for 73,000 on the market during the period the advertisement was posted. However, Fubon Multimedia could not present any record or evidence that the product had ever been sold for 73,000 dollars. The company expressed the market price had been calculated by its planning personnel according to the data collected in 2016 before it was posted on the momo Shopping Site. Although Fubon Multimedia contested that it had failed to change the price after market price fluctuations in 2017 and therefore the shopping website continued to use the 2016 market price, the company was unable to present any record or evidence that the product had ever been sold for 73,000 in 2016. Hence, the representation in the advertisement was inconsistent with reality. In addition, Fubon Multimedia was selling the product for 54,500 dollars on the momo Shopping Website, significantly lower than the market price of 73,000 dollars posted, giving the impression that a large discount was being offered and likely to cause consumers to have wrong perceptions and decisions.
3. Grounds for disposition:
   1. Consumers obtained price information about the product in question from the momo Shopping Site, placed their orders and paid the money. Fubon Multimedia was the payee, issued the invoice and provided after-sale service. For consumers, Fubon Multimedia was the trading counterpart they did transactions with and the manager of the website. The company was the seller of the product in question and profited from the sales. Plus, Fubon Multimedia also admitted the advertisement that the product was being sold for 73,000 dollars had been produced and posted by its planning personnel although the company could not produce any record or evidence that the product had ever been sold for 73,000 dollars. Moreover, Fubon Multimedia was selling the product for 54,500 dollars which was significantly lower than the market price of 73,000 dollars posted. The impression that the momo Shopping Site was giving a rather considerable discount was likely to cause consumers to have wrong perceptions and decisions. Therefore, it was a false and misleading representation in violation of Paragraph 1 of Article 21 of the Fair Trade Law.
   2. After assessing the motive and purpose of Fubon Multimedia for engaging in the unlawful act, the inappropriate profit expected, the level of harm of the unlawful act to trading order, the duration of the harm to trading order, the profit gained as a result of the unlawful act, the business scale, management condition and market status of the company, whether the company had been corrected or warned by the central competent authority for the same type of violation, past violation types, frequency , intervals and penalties received, the level of remorse after the unlawful act and cooperativeness throughout the investigation and other factors, the FTC imposed an administrative fine of 150,000 dollars on Fubon Multimedia in accordance with the first section of Article 42 of the Fair Trade Law.

Appendix:

Fubon Multimedia Technology Co., Ltd.’s Uniform Invoice Number: 27365925

Summarized by: Wu, Bo-Yu ; Supervised by: Chang, Chan-Chi