Scams involving e-commerce sites aren’t exactly uncommon.
The most recent swindle involved offering a “job” to victims where they would get compensated for purportedly improving the sales of a listing on an e-commerce platform, when in reality they were just transferring their hard-earned money to swindlers.
In other cases, buyers on these platforms have cheated sellers by marking up their prices to an unreasonable degree, or not delivering items which have been paid for.
This case, however, is a little different, as the alleged offender cheated the online shopping platform itself.
Man Allegedly Cheated Lazada of Over $100,000 by Abusing Its Voucher Payment & Buyers’ Refunds
The man, a 39-year-old, was a seller on Lazada.
He purportedly masqueraded as buyers, presumably for his own listings, so he could abuse Lazada’s voucher payments and buyers’ refund schemes.
In doing so, the man defrauded the company of more than S$100,000.
The police said they received a report of the man’s “suspected fraudulent activities” on the platform on Monday (16 Aug).
Officers from the Commercial Affairs Department managed to establish the identity of the man through investigations and with assistance from Lazada.
He was arrested on Wednesday (18 Aug) in the vicinity of Silat Avenue.
Officers found a computer, mobile phones, and SIM cards in his possession and seized all items as they are believed to have been used in the suspected fraudulent activities.
If convicted, the man could face up to 10 years in prison for cheating.
Investigations are ongoing.
Man Jailed 21 Months For Similar Offence
Last month, a 23-year-old was sentenced to 21 months in prison for the same offence.
For those who don’t know, Lazada has a seven-day refund policy where buyers can return orders made within seven days of delivery, and payments are refunded to them.
The same amount is then debited from the sellers’ accounts, but it’s usually offset by subsequent transactions.
In Oct 2019, a man by the name of Joe Lim devised a scheme to abuse this policy to make a profit.
He posed as both the seller and buyer in several instances and even packed items to drop off at the warehouse of Lazada’s logistics partner. Of course, these packages would simply come back to Lim’s house.
However, he’d claim that the item packed was not the same as the one ordered, and request a refund.
His “buyer” account would then get the refund, but since the “seller” account did not receive any more orders on it, the same amount couldn’t be debited from it as there were no subsequent transactions to offset it.
Using this method, Lim defrauded Lazada of between S$61,000 and S$101,000 between October and December 2019.
He has not made any restitution of his own.
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