An analysis by the Korea Consumer Agency of 17 domestic and international marriage brokerage firms found that key contractual terms, such as the number of meetings and success fees, were either unfavorable to consumers or based on vague standards, indicating a need for improvement.
According to the agency's analysis on the 24th of consumer redress cases related to marriage matchmaking services filed over the past three years, from 2023 through last year, "contract termination and penalties" accounted for 56.1% (693 cases), more than half of the 1,236 total cases. This was followed by "breach of contract" at 39.2% (485 cases) and "quality complaints" at 1.7% (21 cases).
In the "contract termination and penalties" category, many cases involved firms deducting meeting counts merely for providing a counterpart's profile upon mid-contract termination, or paying smaller refunds by excluding service meetings from the total agreed count when calculating the per-meeting fee. Next, "breach of contract" primarily involved cases where firms arranged counterparts who did not match the conditions agreed upon at the time of contract, while "quality complaints" mainly involved insufficient document verification during the matching process or delayed communication with managers.
Of the eight domestic brokerage firms surveyed, two applied terms unfavorable to consumers, such as deducting meeting counts merely by providing a counterpart's profile even when no actual meeting had taken place.
In addition, four firms agreed only verbally to unlimited matching or additional matching beyond the basic number (service meetings), and either omitted these from the contract or recorded a limited number of agreed meetings. In such cases, disputes frequently arose upon mid-contract termination, as consumers calculated refunds based on what they had been told verbally while operators based them on the terms specified in the contract.
Furthermore, among the firms surveyed, seven domestic firms and one international firm had success fee agreements, but the criteria for "marriage success" were unclear. It was found that some considered the day of the formal family meeting (sanggyeonrye) or the date the wedding was confirmed—rather than the wedding day itself—as the point of success, or did not specify concrete criteria for success.
In particular, seven of the nine international brokerage firms stipulated that consumers must pay damages or penalties to their meeting counterpart if they unilaterally abandoned the marriage or broke off the engagement during the marriage process. However, they did not specify the basis for the fees charged.
Of the 15 surveyed firms operating websites, only eight posted prices so that anyone could easily check them. Four firms either did not post prices on their websites or displayed them in ranges, while the remaining three restricted price verification by requiring contact authentication or membership registration procedures.
Under Article 8 of the current Marriage Brokerage Business Act, marriage brokers operating an internet website must post fees, membership dues, and similar charges so that anyone can easily verify them regardless of whether they have signed up for the service.
In addition, under Articles 25 and 8 of the same law, marriage brokers must purchase guarantee insurance to cover liability for damages arising from intent or negligence, and must post the procedure for claiming guarantee insurance payments on their websites. However, the survey found that it was difficult to verify subscription status or the validity period on the websites of 13 firms, and one firm did not post the guarantee insurance claim procedure.
The Consumer Agency said, "Based on the results of this survey, we recommended that the surveyed operators align contract terms with verbal agreements, use current standard terms and conditions, improve terms unfavorable to consumers, and improve provisions related to the use of member information such as photos."
