A COUPLE has been detained by police in Yantian District for opening an online shop to swindle about 100 customers out of more than 210,000 yuan (US$31,587) via an online shop.
The couple, Xiao, 27, and his wife Li, 25, sold products far lower than market prices and disappeared after customers paid the money into bank accounts which were opened with fake or stolen ID cards, the Yantian District Public Security Subbureau said Monday.
According to investigators, the couple, who lived in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, promoted their shop at several online shopping sites, offering products such as virtual money, computers, mobile phones and cosmetics with discounts of up to 70 percent.
They claimed in the posts that each product had quality certification and was guaranteed and also offered refunds and repair services. They insisted customers paid the money to their personal bank accounts. If anyone wanted to pay through online payment supervision software, such as PayPal or AliPay, they would try to persuade them not to.
A Shenzhen customer identified as Yan explained how he lost money.
I paid Xiao 2,400 yuan for virtual money sold by Tencent, to play games at the online platform set up by Tencent. After I transferred the money to an account in the name of Huang, I did not receive any [virtual money]. He said I had to buy a Nokia mobile phone worth 1,180 yuan to get the cards containing the virtual money. It was about half price, so I bought it. Then he disappeared.
When Yan realized he had been swindled, he called Yantian police.
Police said the couple used to run a beer shop in Zhuhai. I was swindled out of 3,000 yuan by an online shop when buying a mobile phone in 2008, so we decided to open [a shop] to cheat someone else in the same way, Xiao told police. They even deliberately bought products from online swindlers to learn their swindling skills.
They bought five ID cards and opened about 20 bank accounts to avoid being caught by police. (Wang Yuanyuan)
