A mainland tourist from Ningbo was on Tuesday tricked into paying HKD22,800 for something he didn’t want in a Tsim Sha Tsui pharmacy.
The man, surnamed Xu, went to the Granville Road pharmacy to purchase a bottle of cough syrup for his young son. The clerk told him that some ground up “emperor fruit” would be an effective remedy, but Xu apparently declined.
However, Xu said that while he was paying for the cough syrup on his credit card, the clerk covered the price and charged him HKD22,800 for the emperor fruit after all, instead of the HKD126 cough syrup. When Xu complained, the clerk allegedly said that Xu would not be able to get a refund, since he had already ground up the emperor fruit.
Not knowing what to do, Xu contacted the police, who went to the pharmacy to investigate the claims. The clerk, in the presence of police offers, is said to have offered to give the tourist back his HKD22,000 and throw in the bottle of cough medicine for free.
Xu, who was in a rush to get to the airport and clearly easily pleased, agreed. Then he stopped making any sense at all, and bought nine unground emperor fruits to take home. We don’t want to justify the actions of a con artist, but at this point surely even the most gullible person would not have given the clerk any more business.
After returning back to Ningbo, Xu (aka most gullible man in the world, trademark pending) found that eight out of the nine emperor fruits were mouldy. Oh no! You mean the guy who tried to rip you off for something you didn’t even want would sell you dodgy produce?! Our world is shattered.
In another twist to this tale, Xu consulted a doctor of Chinese medicine, who told him that the “emperor fruit” he purchased was in fact just the common terminalia chebula, also known as yellow or chebulic myrobalan, which is worth approximately HKD2. Xu paid HKD3,800 per ounce for the “emperor fruit”, which, given the exchange rate on Tuesday, means he paid a casual 1,365 times the price for an equal amount of terminalia chebula.
Apple Daily reports that the outraged man has vowed never to return to Hong Kong, and could not believe that he has been taken advantage of so badly. Maybe he should also hold off on checking his email, just in case there are any Nigerian princes looking for his assistance.
Photo: Wikipedia
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