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Darcie's channel (YouTube) |
YouTuber Darcie on Tuesday apologized for her actions on what she had initially described as "housing fraud incident," which many people perceived as her trying to shift her own losses from a scam onto another victim.
"I'm ashamed to admit that I failed to recognize the severity of the housing fraud issue, and made the mistake of referring to my personal experience as one. I apologize for the inaccurate depiction of my experience," she said in an apology posted via her channel.
The incident is muddled in detail, as she had been the sole provider of the information and only her perspective was made available, but her account of her actions had sparked widespread criticism.
Last month, the 23-year-old whose real name is Je Min-young, said in a video that she signed a faulty "jeonse" contract.
Jeonse refers to a system where the tenant rents a home without monthly payment, instead paying a substantial lump sum deposit at the start of the lease contract. The deposit effectively acts as an interest-free loan for the homeowner.
Je found that her landlord had tax arrears and could not pay her back the deposit. It was also found that the deposit for the home was too high compared to the property value. She said she sought out tenants that could take over her contract and found one.
But the potential tenant had backed out of the deal upon finding out about the arrears, forcing Je to buy the home with a bank loan. She expressed disappointment in losing the prospective tenant, who she said was her "only hope."
Several viewers said what she did was essentially let another person take the faulty housing deal instead, criticizing her for seeking another tenant knowing full well that the new renter would not get their deposit back. Upon mounting criticism, she issued an apology and said she only acted according to the advice to the landlord and the real estate agent.
She added that she did not hide or fail to disclose the details of the contract for the potential suitor.
Earlier this month, she posted another video with a lawyer -- her cousin -- who claimed that the incident was never a housing fraud, on grounds that the criminal intention by the landlord was never proven. While legally accurate -- an intention to deceit must be proven to secure a fraud conviction -- the technicality infuriated many viewers since it was Je herself who expressed her frustration over not being able to get her deposit back.
She also said that the potential suitor of the house learned of the landlord's financial issues through a real estate agent, made possible with her consent.
None of the other parties involved in the incident -- the real estate agent in question, landlord, the person who almost took over the jeonse contract -- has come forward to provide their side of the issue, and Je's stated actions do not constitute a crime. But the incident touched a nerve in a country where thousands of people in recent years were victimized by jeonse housing defaults.
As of the government report submitted last week, 19,621 people are estimated to have signed faulty jeonse contracts, unable to get their deposits back. The lease contract for jeonse is conventionally around 60-70 percent of the market value of the property, meaning nearly 20,000 people were scammed of substantial portion of their assets.
Je's recent apology did not acknowledge the moral issue of attempting to dump her faulty housing onto another person.
