KMG

Privacy Policy

Effective 2 November 2026 · applies to koreamerchants.com

Korea Merchants Group (“KMG”, “we”) respects the privacy of everyone who uses koreamerchants.com (the “Site”). This policy explains what information we collect through the Site, how we use it, with whom we share it, and the choices you have. It applies to information collected online through the Site. Information we receive offline — for example in a meeting, by telephone or on paper — is handled under the same principles but is not described here.

We do not publish your personal information, sell it, or use it for advertising. We use it to answer your enquiries, to broker and document vehicle sales, and to run shipments.

1. The Information We Collect

You can browse the Site, search cars, read inspection records and view routes and rates without telling us who you are. We collect personal information only when you give it to us or when your browser sends it automatically.

  1. Information you give us. When you register as an importing dealer or send an enquiry we ask for your name, email address, company name, country and the city you import to. Optional fields are a telephone or messenger handle, a business registration number, the volume you expect to buy and anything you write in the message box. When a deal proceeds we also receive the details needed for the invoice, payment confirmation, shipping documents and customs clearance, such as the consignee name and address and the remitter name shown on your bank transfer.
  2. Information about a deal. For each enquiry, quote, order and shipment we keep the cars concerned, the quotes and invoices issued, the payment confirmations received and the transport milestones reported by the logistics company.
  3. Technical information. Our hosting provider records the IP address, browser type, pages requested and timestamps of each request, as every web server does. We use this to keep the Site running, to detect abuse and to understand which pages are used. It does not tell us who you are.
  4. Cookies. The Site sets two functional cookies, each only when you make a choice: kmg_locale, which remembers the language you selected, and kmg_currency, which remembers the display currency you selected. They contain no personal information. We do not set analytics or advertising cookies. Your browser lets you delete or block cookies; the Site still works without them, but your language and currency choice will not be remembered.

2. Information We Do Not Collect

We do not ask for or store government identification numbers, passport numbers, bank account or card numbers, passwords, precise location or advertising identifiers through the Site. Payment is made by bank transfer to our account; we receive the remittance confirmation, not your banking credentials. If a document you send us for customs purposes contains such information, we use it only for that purpose and keep it only as long as the shipment and the law require.

3. How We Use Information

We use the information described above for the following purposes, and for no others:

  1. To answer your enquiries and to tell you whether, when and at what indicative cost we can deliver to your city.
  2. To broker a sale: to issue the invoice, confirm receipt of your payment, pay the selling dealer and keep the transaction record that Korean law requires.
  3. To arrange a shipment with the logistics company and to send you its progress, documents and tracking information.
  4. To verify that you are a business that may lawfully import vehicles, and to comply with export-control, sanctions, tax and anti-money-laundering rules that apply to us.
  5. To keep the Site secure, to prevent fraud and abuse, and to improve the Site based on how it is used in aggregate.
  6. To send you service messages about your enquiries, orders and shipments. We send commercial messages — for example a note that a new route has opened — only if you have asked for them, and every such message tells you how to stop receiving them.

4. With Whom We Share Information

We share personal information only as described here. We do not sell it and we do not give it to advertisers.

  1. The selling dealer. When you enquire about a specific car, the dealer who owns it needs to know that a buyer is interested and, once you accept a quote, who the buyer is for the sales documents. We pass on your name, company and country, and later the details needed for the contract and export papers. We do not give the dealer your contact details before you have accepted a quote unless you ask us to.
  2. The logistics company. When a shipment is booked, the logistics company that sells the freight receives the consignee details, the destination and the vehicle identification needed for the bill of lading, rail and road waybills, transit customs and insurance.
  3. Service providers. The Site is hosted by Netlify, Inc., which also stores the registration and enquiry forms submitted through the Site; email is handled by our email provider. These providers process data on our instructions and under their own security commitments. Car listings, photos and inspection records shown on the Site are read from the public record of the Korean dealer complex in Incheon; no information about you is sent to that complex by the Site.
  4. Authorities and legal requirements. We disclose information when the law requires it, to customs and tax authorities in connection with an export, to enforce our Terms, or to protect the rights, property or safety of our users, our partners or ourselves.
  5. Business transfers. If KMG is reorganised, merged or sold, the records needed to continue serving you may be transferred to the successor, which will be bound by this policy.

5. International Transfers

KMG operates from the Republic of Korea, with an office in Yantai, China, and partners at the destination. Information you give us is stored on servers operated by our hosting provider, which may be located outside your country, and is shared with the selling dealer in Korea and the logistics company and its agents along the route to your city. By using the Site and sending us information, you consent to these transfers. Where the law of your country requires a specific safeguard for such transfers, we rely on your consent and on contractual commitments from our providers.

6. How Long We Keep Information

We keep registration and enquiry information for as long as you are in contact with us about buying cars, and for three years after the last contact unless you ask us to delete it earlier. Records of concluded transactions — invoices, payment confirmations, contracts and shipping documents — are kept for the period required by Korean commercial, tax and electronic-commerce law, which is up to five years from the transaction. Technical server logs are kept for a short period for security purposes and then deleted.

7. Security

Information we gather through the Site is stored in systems controlled by us or hosted for us under access controls, encryption in transit and the physical and technical safeguards of our providers. We limit access to the people who need it to answer your enquiry or run your shipment. No system is perfectly secure, however, and we cannot guarantee that information sent over the Internet will never be intercepted. Please do not send us more than we ask for, and tell us at once if you believe an email claiming to come from KMG is not genuine: we never change our bank account details by email and will never ask you to pay anyone other than KMG for a car or anyone other than the logistics company for freight.

8. Your Rights

You may ask us at any time to show you the personal information we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to stop using it for a particular purpose or to send you a copy. Write to hello@koreamerchants.com; we will answer within the time the law allows, normally within 10 business days. We may need to keep records that the law requires us to retain, and we will tell you if so. Where the law of your country gives you further rights, for example to complain to a data-protection authority, those rights are not affected by this policy.

9. Children

The Site is a business-to-business service for vehicle dealers and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has sent us information, please tell us and we will delete it.

10. Links to Other Sites

The Site links to other websites, such as customs authorities, port operators and the sources cited in our country guides. Those sites have their own privacy policies, which we do not control, and this policy does not apply to them.

11. Changes to This Policy

If we change this policy we will post the new version on the Site with a new effective date. If a change reduces your rights or widens how we use information, we will announce it on the Site at least 30 days before it takes effect and, where we have your email address, tell you directly.

12. Contact

Questions about privacy, requests under section 8 and reports of suspicious messages go to hello@koreamerchants.com. The company information required by Korean law — trade name, representative, address and business registration number — is posted on the Company page.

This policy is prepared in Korean and English. If the two versions differ, the Korean version prevails.