Coupang accused of negligence and selling over a decade-old expired cooking oil

Coupang has been trending in South Korea after a customer uploaded photos of the cooking oil she purchased at the e-commerce store. As her story spread, the largest online retailer in the country has been criticized for allegedly selling a product that had already expired more than 16 years ago.

The customer uploaded photos of the cooking oil with the expiration date of 2005, and her post was quickly shared online. Now, Coupang is also being accused of being negligent with its lax inspection of returned products.

As per The Korea Times, the customer posted close-up photos of the label of a refined soybean cooking oil. The expiry date shows June 9, 2005, which is 16 years, and four months expired in October. The customer further said that Coupang put a note on the cooking oil, explaining that only the container was damaged, but the product insider is still good to use.

"I ordered two bottles of cooking oil on Coupang and one of them had expired in 2005," the buyer claimed. "If I had not checked and used it to cook my meal, something horrible could have happened."

In response to the claim and circulating photos, Coupang said it has already launched an internal investigation to determine what happened and clarify the allegations. While there are some who are not entirely blaming the company, more people think that it was Coupang's fault.

One concerned commenter said that something bad could have happened if the customer had not checked the expiration date. He/She added that Coupang should be very careful when checking the returned products so there will be no mix-ups.

"The controversial cooking oil had been sent off from our warehouse that opened in 2018," a company official said in response. "There is no chance that an item that expired in 2005 would have been stocked at our fulfillment center."

Meanwhile, some people sided with Coupang and raised suspicion that the customer may have tried to take advantage of the online retailer's return policy by deliberately returning an expired cooking oil after getting a new bottle as a replacement. Another one pointed out that the allegation does not make sense because Coupang was launched in 2010, so it could not have distributed a cooking oil that was made five years before the store opened.