Singaporeans love durian.
However, durian season is looking slightly different this year, thanks to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and many chose to place their durian orders online to save themselves from the trouble of actually going out to get them.
Unfortunately for some durian lovers, their durian orders never arrived, and they basically paid good money for…well, nothing.
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New Durian Delivery Shop Scams 200 CustomersÂ
About 200 durian lovers were left disappointed and furious after their experience with a new local durian delivery shop, “Durians Express Delivery”.
The shop was founded in June 2020, and its name is very similar to another durian shop that has been around for a longer time, “Durian Express Delivery“.
Durians Express Delivery claims to sell premium quality durians.
They even offer express deliveries where durian lovers going through withdrawal symptoms can get their fix within three hours, from 11am to 11pm daily.
However, these 200 customers were left with no deliveries at all.
A Scam
According to the Straits Times, these customers placed orders ranging from $300 to $900 on the shop’s website, duriansexpressdelivery.com, after coming across its posts on Instagram and Facebook.
Among the 20 customers that Straits Times interviewed, two had already filed a police report against the shop and three more were planning to do so.
All of the customers had e-statements showing the payments they made to the shop, via credit card, debit card or Internet banking. However, none of them had received electronic receipts or invoices by e-mail after payment was made.
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Large Sums Handed Over
Which sounds pretty fishy, especially considering the fact that all of them had paid rather huge amounts for their durian orders.
Annie Ng, a 31-year-old housewife, said that she waited an entire afternoon on 10 July for the $500 worth of durians she had ordered. After hours of being unable to contact the seller and doing some digging online, she spotted the similarity between that shop and the older, legitimate durian business, durianexpressdelivery.com.
“The thing that infuriates me most about the situation is that we got scammed not because we were being cheap and wanted to get durians at lower prices. We thought we were paying a premium for the best durians ever but we ended up getting cheated,” she said.
She proceeded to make a police report on 13 July and noticed that the durians expressdelivery.com URL was taken down the next day.
Another customer who ordered $600 worth of durians from the shop told Straits Times that they were still in the process of filing complaints with the Consumers Association of Singapore regarding the incident.
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However, not everyone who ordered from duriansexpressdelivery.com was left-empty handed.
Two customers that the Straits Times spoke to had actually received their orders, but the fruits were frozen hard with rotting seeds and flesh. They were also not given any refunds.
Facebook Support Group
Those who were affected came together to join a Facebook group called “Victims of duriansexpressdelivery.com”, and it currently has 205 members.
Attempts to reach the owner of the company have been unsuccessful so far, and the latest update from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority revealed that the company changed its address on 14 July, and now lists the Orchard Road address of a management consultancy firm with a completely different name.
In other words, the company might be taking evasive measures liao.
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Hopefully, the customers who were affected will get their money back soon and those behind this scam will pay the price for what they did.
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