A man was sentenced to 160 hours of community service today after being found guilty of convincing six women to drop a combined HK$238,000 (US$30,386) on overpriced beauty treatments by pretending he was a potential love interest.
According to the authorities, this is the first time someone has been successfully prosecuted in Hong Kong for acting as a sales agent for goods and services while hiding that fact from prospective buyers.
The defendant, 26-year-old Wong Kit Cheong, made contact with the six victims via dating apps like 2Date and Happn from May to September 2017, HK01 reports.
According to the victims, Wong pretended to be a warm-hearted man looking for love.
On their first face-to-face meetings, Wong would take them to branches of a beauty center called Dr. BK Laser in Mong Kok and Causeway Bay, enticing them into buying treatment packages that cost anywhere from HK$3,000 to HK$8,000 (US$383 to US$1,021). He’d allegedly receive a commission of 30% for each sale.
Eastern Magistrates’ Court this morning found Wong guilty of “engaging in relation to a consumer in a commercial practice that is a misleading omission,” a crime under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance.
As Wong had already returned the compensation he received — HK$238,000 (about US$30,400) — to the court on Nov. 26, the magistrate sentenced him to 160 hours’ community service.
Speaking outside the courtroom today, Sun Wai-yee of the Customs and Excise Department said that this was the first successful prosecution of a salesperson who failed to identify their commercial intent in selling beauty services.
Sun said the sentence reflected the seriousness of the crime, and that Wong’s punishment should serve as a deterrent to others, HK01 reports.
We don’t want to say that hustling beauty packages tends to be a dubious business to begin with, but Sun also revealed that in the first 11 months of this year, the Customs and Excise Department had received 376 complaints involving beauty centers.
She appealed to customers to ask for more information before purchasing services from others, and reminded the public to be cautious when making friends online or via apps.
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