Mao Shan Wang durians — loved by connoisseurs for their bittersweet flavor and creamy flesh — are a tad bit pricier than their lesser cousins, and conmen are taking advantage of both their value and our affection for the king of fruits to pull off scams.
A netizen went on a rant on Facebook warning others about “some bastards” who he claimed tried swindling his wife when he wasn’t at home.
How it works:
- Vendors go from door to door to sell “Mao Shan Wang quality” durians at $15 per fruit.
- Once a buyer agrees to buy, vendors will start opening up durians — without asking the buyer.
- Once opened, vendors will say that it’s $15 per kilogram. Protests by buyer will be deflected with vendors saying that they must have “misheard”.
- They’ll then whip out their weighing scale. Presumably rigged, they’ll weigh the durians. Weight shown will be supremely excessive, and vendors will demand buyers to pay up and refuse to leave until they’re paid.
Luckily for the netizen’s wife, she went to call her husband, who subsequently called the police. The durian scammers quickly left, stating that they would return to get their payment. They never did.
The police did come by — one of whom informed the netizen that even his own mother fell prey to the durian scam.
“Kudos to these fellas for making the effort to rig their weighing scale and coming up with such a creative scam,” he wrote. “Dear family and friends, please take note of this and warn your close ones to stay vigilant and not fall prey to these durian scammers.”
