Two local women defrauded by the purported seller of facemasks on an online social platform reported the case to the police on Saturday and Sunday respectively, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lai Man Vai said during a regular press conference on Monday.
According to Lai, the first victim told the police that she had paid 876 patacas on June 6 for six boxes of adult facemasks, totalling 300 masks. The other victim paid a 500 pataca deposit for two boxes of adult facemasks (100 masks in total) and six boxes of children’s facemasks (300 masks in total). The total loss of the two victims amounted to more than 1,300 patacas.
According to Lai, the “seller” asked the victims to use a local electronic payment tool for the transactions, but the victims lost contact with the suspect after the money had been paid.
Since the victims had not received any facemasks by mid-July both suspected they had been cheated and so reported the case to the police separately. Lai said that at the time of the press conference no-one had been arrested.
Lai said that according to the social platform account reported by the two victims, the police suspect that the two cases involve the same culprit.
Lai urged residents to be careful when shopping online. In view of the many fraud cases involving facemasks in Macau since the epidemic began, Lai advised residents who need to buy facemasks to go to trustworthy brick-and-mortar stores or reliable online platforms to prevent being defrauded.
