According to a Yonhap News article, the police sent the head of a delivery agency company to prosecutors on charges of illegally making 67 people work as foreign delivery riders. The investigation found that this company created delivery app IDs under the names of Korean acquaintances and then let foreigners use them. On the outside, they looked like Korean accounts, but the real person doing the delivery was someone else. What this case shows is not just simple personal wrongdoing. It shows that inside delivery platforms, there is a structure where the account holder and the real rider can be separated easily. So this article does not stop at just summarizing the case. It focuses more on the structure behind why this keeps happening.
원문 보기If 67 people were caught at the same time, it means this is more of a structural problem than personal wrongdoing
When you first see this news, you may feel like this: ‘Someone borrowed another person’s account, so is that just fraud?’ Yes, illegal is illegal. But the fact that 67 people moved in the same way means it was not just a few people secretly breaking rules. It means there was a gap in the system that could be repeated.
The world of delivery apps is not as simple as we think. The app company that takes orders, the delivery agency company and branch that recruit and manage riders in the field, the account holder who lent the name, and the real rider who actually rides the motorcycle are often separated. When the layers are divided like this, money can keep moving, but responsibility can easily become unclear.
So the key point of this case does not end with ‘there were foreign riders.’ The more important question is this. Why does account lending keep repeating on delivery platforms? And when an accident or crackdown happens, why is it so hard to clearly say whose responsibility it is right away?
Delivery apps control orders and dispatches. But in many cases, the legal responsibility is pushed downward.
In this gap, the ‘separation of the account holder and the real rider’ keeps repeating.
App company, agency, account holder, real rider — who handles what, and why does responsibility become unclear?
| Party | Main job | What they hold | Risk they carry when a problem happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| App company | Order brokerage, dispatch system operation, rating rule design | Algorithm, fare structure, account policy | Pressure to avoid direct employment responsibility |
| Delivery agency company and branch | Rider recruitment, field operation, dispatch execution | Field workforce management, local network | Middle responsibility in disputes over accidents, complaints, and illegal hiring |
| Account holder | Open an ID under their own name, support login and verification | Account access rights, authority to pass verification | Legal responsibility if account lending is caught |
| Real rider | Actually does the delivery | Working hours, movement, field response | Crackdown, accidents, industrial accidents, unstable income |
When one order moves, responsibility gets split into many layers like this.
They do mobile phone verification and face verification too, so why can they not block it completely?
| Check step | What it means | On-site weak point |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile phone identity verification | Check who opened the account with text message or telecom information | The verification code can be passed to another person. |
| Bank account verification | Check whose account will receive settlement money | If only the account holder's account matches, the real driver can be different and it may not show at first. |
| Face verification | The app checks if it is really the person with the camera | After the first verification, another person may work, or if regular checks are not frequent, there is still room to get around it. |
| Regular re-verification | Keep checking again during work if it is really the same person | If it is too frequent, delivery speed slows down, on-site pushback grows, and operating cost becomes heavy. |
It is not that they cannot stop it because they do not know the problem, but because if they block it too hard, the platform also gets hurt
This is where it feels a little bitter. Platforms also know account sharing is risky. If an accident happens, trust breaks, and if an illegal employment problem comes out, the damage to the company image is big too. But the more strictly they check identity, the more another problem appears.
Delivery platforms are basically a speed business. Riders need to get assigned quickly when orders pile up, and if sign-up is too strict, supply goes down. If you look at cases from other countries, they are increasing tools like face verification while cracking down harder on account sharing, but at the same time, there are also worries that friction in the field and operating burden get bigger.
So the structure becomes like this. Profit and control go upward, and legal risk and field risk go downward. The platform holds the algorithm and rules, but on paper, it tries to put responsibility on individual riders or the account holder. Then gray areas like account lending do not disappear, and instead keep surviving in different forms.
To improve safety, verification needs to be stronger. But the stronger the verification gets, the more speed and supply can be shaken.
Platforms are always walking a tightrope between these two goals.
So this case is not just one delivery app company's problem, but homework for platform labor
If you look at this case as just a crackdown on illegal foreign rider workers, you are only seeing half of it. The bigger problem is that in platform labor, who the real employer is and who is responsible becomes blurred too easily. Data from the Korea Labor Institute also says that the spread of delivery apps has expanded an area that is hard to explain only with traditional employment relationships.
From the reader's view, you can understand it like this. Even behind one chicken order I made, the app company, the agency company, the account holder, and the actual rider can all be different people. Then when an accident happens or a dispute comes up, it becomes really hard to ask one person for responsibility right away. You can think of it as similar to a complicated rental structure where the landlord, sublessor, tenant, and actual resident are all different.
When you look at this issue from now on, you need to look at three things together. How often and in what way identity verification should be done, how far the platform headquarters should be responsible, and whether to leave the agency company and sole proprietor structure as it is. This case is not finished news, but closer to a signal asking how far platform labor in Korea needs to rewrite its rules.
If face verification is done more often, some cases can be blocked. But the responsibility structure itself does not get sorted out automatically.
In the end, the key is to make it clearer that 'whoever controls should be responsible.'
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