An online retailer has jumped aboard the “fake news” train for no reason other than to sell some cheap clothes.
In an advertisement online, net retailer Yaloo says it is selling jackets, usually worth HK$7,500, for a mere HK$500, to recoup costs and pay employees after a manufacturer went bust.
The link to the sale appeared on social media about two weeks ago together with a TVB report about the failed factory and its now unemployed workers.
We’re not sure whether the jackets are real; the story behind their remarkable discount is, however, not.
The TVB “report” is in fact a segment of an unrelated piece from network’s News Magazine show, featuring reporter Kenneth Ng King-chun.
The clip has been doctored via editing, muting and adding subtitles.
The added subtitles claim the owner, drowning in HK$50 million of gambling debts, abandoned the factory leaving employees without three months of salaries.
“They are selling down jackets at a low price to get their salary back,” the subtitles reads.
According to Sing Tao Headline, more than 100 altruistic bargain hunters snapped up jackets after seeing the report.
The post has since been deleted while the information on the Facebook page changed several times.
A representative of TVB confirmed to Sing Tao Headline that the outlet had not run a story about a clothing factory going bust and added the company was considering legal action against those behind the video.
A similar fake news video was also created to target customers in Macau, with footage from Teledifusão de Macau edited in a similar fashion, according to local outlet MASTVNET.
The website of online retailer Yaloo is still live, with a timer on the page urging customers to hurry because they’re down to “last 500 jackets.”
“We just want our salary back!” wrote somebody on the site, claiming to be from the factory that appears not to exist.
No contact information for the store is provided on its page or the original Facebook post, except for an email address that does not work.
Several customers told Sing Tao Headline that they were disappointed. The jackets’ material and size, they said, were “unsatisfying.”
