Skincare Scammers Caught in China
When it comes to skincare and beauty, there’s always someone out there trying to mooch off of people’s insecurities and vanity. Such a thing has happened in China, where 11 people are going on trial for fraud charges. They are accused of swindling 80 different woman out of 1.44 million yuan ($228,096 US) by pretending to hire them as models for moisturizer and other skincare products, then charging them for made up “fees”.
Their scam was rather simple. Four of the suspects were the main perpetrators, and had hired the other 7 to act as if they were customer service representatives for two local skincare companies. After purchasing the information of various customers, they began calling them. They claimed that they were seeking reactions about the moisturizers and other products that the clients had used. During the phone call, the fake representatives asked if the women would be interested in trying a new product and becoming a model for the company. That’s when the scam began.
Lured in by the idea of becoming models, the women listened as they were told they would be paid $50,000 yuen for commercials and ads. Along with that, they had to use the product in order to snap “before” and “after” pictures. These pictures would then be used in large magazines. The only thing that they had to do was pay “small” fees for lawyers and other such expenses.
For almost 2 years, this band of scammers suckered dozens of women out of millions of yuan. The worst example was the one who lost 222,500 yuan due to more and more fees added to her charges. Happily, in April of last year, they were finally caught and are now on trial.
The thing to learn from here is that swindlers do exist. They’re experts at figuring out the weak points in people’s defenses, and beauty is often one of them. If a skincare company calls you, requesting money so that way you can represent them as a model for moisturizer or some other product, it’s most likely someone trying to con you. This is especially true if you’ve never met anyone from the company and have had no previous contact with them.
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