Online Shopping Horror: Woman Receives Broken Ceramic Cups Instead of Ordered iPad Mini

[webfact]

 

A woman from Udon Thani city was left speechless after an online order for an iPad Mini took an unexpected turn.

 

On May 31, Kittipoom Arkavithayanukul, Deputy Police Inspector of the Udon Thani Municipal Police Station, while on duty, received a report from Manasnun Saenthanakun, 53, an online seller and laundry shop owner, about her unfortunate online shopping experience, reported Daily News.

 

She had ordered a second-hand iPad Mini from an online store that sold used items via a cash-on-delivery parcel service.

 

After paying the amount of 3,700 Baht for the gadget, to her shock, Manasnun found a set of ceramic cups inside the package instead of the iPad Mini (ไอแพดมินิ) she was expecting. Some of the cups were even broken.

 

Picture: Daily News

 

Manasnun stated that she usually orders goods such as cosmetics and household items through various online platforms. This time, she saw a second-hand iPad Mini on sale for 3,700 Baht on a Facebook page and decided to buy it for her online business.

 

"Unable to get a response from the seller's Facebook page, I contacted the courier company," she explained. "They asked me to file a complaint so they could proceed with an investigation. I regularly order items online, but I've never encountered such a scam before. I want to warn online shoppers to thoroughly check before purchasing and urge sellers like this to stop these practices. It's heartbreaking and disappointing for the buyers. Please don't do this to anyone else," Manasnun pleaded.

 

The police have initiated a preliminary investigation to track down the wrongdoer for legal action.

 

Picture: Daily News

 

Top Picture: Daily News

 

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[Pique Dard]

20 minutes ago, webfact said:

Please don't do this to anyone else," Manasnun pleaded.

...you won't be listened to, i can assure you

[lesmac]

This has become very prevalent on farsebook, been caught a few times now so no more and unfortunately genuine sellers are the ones that will suffer most.

[Tarteso]

She got a set of ceramic cups, not so bad scammer ????

[glegolo18]

18 minutes ago, lesmac said:

This has become very prevalent on farsebook, been caught a few times now so no more and unfortunately genuine sellers are the ones that will suffer most.

Yes I can second that. me too fell for it once...... Facebook have these sponsered adds, so they surely get paid from all these scammers. But when we customer reports to Facebook they just do not care at all.....

[curious297]

The fact that in Thailand you will be sued for deformation if you mention the company that allows these scammy barstands to continue in their wicked ways. No real protection for the consumer when Thailand has this policy. 

 

I was in the market looking for a newer GPU. I was on one of Aisa's biggest online market places when I saw what I wanted. The thing is, you could clearly see which vendors were attempting to fraud you as:

 

1. The shop name was just a jumble of letters with no past history of sales or comments.

2. In most cases, they had only the one item for sale.

3. The product page only had the one picture of the GPU and had no real product information unlike the genuine vendors on the same site with the same product.

4. In thai language, they would offer you a discount if you contacted them direct when ordering offsite via the Line app. 

5. When contacting the vendor they would either not answer or sent you their line ID to get you off the main platform and get you to send money direct to their bank account.

6. The item is far cheaper than the real identical product on the same platform.

 

I actually made a list of these scammy vendors and informed the online shopping platform of these scam stores on their platform. The stores were removed in a few days only to pop up again under another store name, same product and with the same line ID!!

 

This was over a year ago and still these stores pop up every day on the online shopping platform. 

 

I asked the shoping platform that if their chat can block / filter out  telephone numbers, emails, etc, why cant they do the same with line ID's in both their chat and within the product description,? I received no answer. 

 

It's as if these online shopping companies don't give a damn if vendors fraud their customers as long as they keep getting their sales commissions even if the products are fake or non existent. They also receive the ID's of the scammy vendors when they create their shop so why don't these vendors get reported to the police for fraud?

For fun, i  ordered a GPU for 20K via cash on delivery. The order went though but as always, it was stuck on the item waiting to be shipped. This went on for about 7 days before the online shopping platform (that has 3 syllables which we cannot mention), cancelled my order on behalf of the scammy vendor. This allows the vendor to continue scamming customers without any fear of being stopped. 

 

Please, do your due diligence and NEVER pay for anything outside of the shopping platforms payment system as this is the only way you have any recourse to get your money back.

[hotchilli]

1 hour ago, lesmac said:

This has become very prevalent on farsebook, been caught a few times now so no more and unfortunately genuine sellers are the ones that will suffer most.

I deleted FB about 5 years ago... never been an issue since.

[rwill]

The thing is even if you order cash on delivery they will not let you open it before paying.

[timendres]

21 minutes ago, rwill said:

The thing is even if you order cash on delivery they will not let you open it before paying.

I have always been able to open and verify before paying. If not, I do not accept the delivery.

[scorecard]

57 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

I deleted FB about 5 years ago... never been an issue since.

I tried years ago, but can't delete it.

[Dart12]

even with Lazada and Shoppee, I've learned you MUST video opening the package as your proof if not sent the right item, a broken item, the right number of items, or even any item at all.

No video, no refund.  You lose.

FB is individual sellers.  Send money after your own research if viable company or not.

[Confuscious]

3 hours ago, Dart12 said:

even with Lazada and Shoppee, I've learned you MUST video opening the package as your proof if not sent the right item, a broken item, the right number of items, or even any item at all.

No video, no refund.  You lose.

FB is individual sellers.  Send money after your own research if viable company or not.

Even this all will not help you to avoid scammers.
I ordered on Lazada an external harddisk, 2 terrabyte, filled with (Thai) movies and songs.
A list of the movies and the songs was on the Lazada seller site.
I ordered one, and after 4 days received the package.
Before paying, I opened the package and took pictures of the items (External HD, USB cable, purse to store the disk, etc.)
Connecting it to my spare-computer (no hard disk), I noticed directly the small amount of movie/songs.
I ran a test program on the hard disk, and the program showed me the it was a 60gb hard disk on which the FAT was tampered to show 2 TB.
Asked a refund from Lazada and showed the scam.
Lazada connected with the seller, a lady who was selling the hard disk for a Chinese company and the seller gave me prompt a full refund asking me to give her a bad score as selling online was her only income.

[richard_smith237]

4 hours ago, Dart12 said:

even with Lazada and Shoppee, I've learned you MUST video opening the package as your proof if not sent the right item, a broken item, the right number of items, or even any item at all.

No video, no refund.  You lose.

I've not found that to be the case - I’ve simply claimed ‘fake item’ and received a refund after filing a complaint with Lazada...   they do require a photo of the item. 

 

Videoing is a nice idea, but whats to say you didn’t simply switch delivery labels and open a fake item yourself ?

 

The buyer has to be protected and Lazada does a resemble job of this. 

 

 

4 hours ago, Dart12 said:

FB is individual sellers.  Send money after your own research if viable company or not.

Facebook Market place on the other hand is full of scammers.....  

Look at how many Rolexes are on FB market place, then look at how many are on official re-sale sites... the difference is huge !!!... 

 

I’ve sold items on Facebook Market place - there is definitely an element of trust involved. 

Pick up in person removes most of the risk. I’ve also shipped items (even a motorcycle), again, there is a necessary element of trust involved and sadly there are plenty of scammers and gullible people around. 

 

 

 

[Nong Khai Man]

20 hours ago, timendres said:

I have always been able to open and verify before paying. If not, I do not accept the delivery.

I Don't Believe YOU !!

[newnative]

Oh, the 'horror'!!!  Give me a break.  If that's the worse thing that ever happens to her . . .