A man and a woman seem to have disappeared after failing to deliver luxury bags and watches ordered and paid for by around 200 people.
As of last month, the couple could no longer be contacted by the people who had placed orders from them.
They appeared to have run off around $32 million, according to a July 10 report from Shin Min Daily News.
The Chinese daily featured a photo of the couple, who appear to be in their late 20s or early 30s.
They told their customers that they travelled to countries such as Switzerland in order to purchase the goods themselves, which is how they are able to sell them at a discount.
But netizens, responding to a story about the man and woman and their hapless customers, appear to blame the customers at least in part for asking for discounts on luxury goods and for trusting an unknown couple with large amounts of money.
However, with at least one customer, the couple reeled him in by making a good single order but then disappeared with a large amount of money that he paid them.
A Mr Huang told Shin Min Daily News that in 2021, he paid the couple $26,000 for a Rolex, which took a month to deliver.
But since the watch was verified as authentic, he decided to trust the man and woman with a payment of $700,000 for six other Patek Philippe and Rolex watches.
He said that he felt the price the couple offered, which is around 10 per cent lower than the market price, made the offer “very worth it.” However, his second order was never delivered.
When he asked about his order two months after ordering, he was added to a Telegram group, only to discover later that it was made up of people who had ordered and paid for branded goods from the couple but never got them.
Mr Huang then filed a police report on July 1.
One young woman, who recently graduated from university, paid the couple over $40,000 for luxury purses.
She wanted to re-sell the bags to raise the money she needed to pay her tuition loans, but to date, her order has not been completed.
Another woman, Ms Zhang, who filed a report on July 2, helped a friend order a Rolex watch from the couple for $20,000 two months ago, but never received it.
The customers who have shared their stories with one another discovered that the couple has had different excuses for not making good on their orders. To one customer, the war in Ukraine was the reason for the delay. With another, the need to process customs tax was given as the reason, although the customer was told their order was already in Singapore.
However, efforts to contact the couple recently have failed.
A Tanjong Pagar store under the man’s name appears to have closed over the past week, and no one has seen them at their Holland Road lately.
Some netizens appear to place the blame, at least partially, on the customers.
/TISG
Filipino maid in Singapore stole more than S$30,000 worth of luxury items from Korean employer