Buyers of 'cheap' masks on Carousell lose $122,000 to overseas scam

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Just $12 for a box of 50 surgical masks?

For at least 600 people, the offer was too good to resist, especially when prices had shot up by more than seven times from 20 cents a mask to $1.50 because of the coronavirus outbreak.

They forked out about $189,000 in total, with some ordering up to 4,000 boxes with the intention of reselling them.

They had been attracted by a listing on online marketplace Carousell by a seller with the username “diywallpaper”. The New Paper understands she is a woman in her 20s.

Advertising her wares as “Cheapest 50pc surgical mask three-ply S$12”, she claimed that other users were “selling this mask at a much higher price using my photos”.

She said the masks were made in Turkey and shipped from Turkey and the Netherlands.

In the end, none of the buyers received the boxes of masks they had ordered, and more than a hundred police reports were made against the seller.

But it seems that the seller might have been a victim of a scam.

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