WARNING: Don’t buy fingers online!
If you could count on your hands how many people were ripped off in a recent online scam, you are probably not their target victim. A couple went public to the press to expose what they believe is a scam they encountered when trying to buy replacement fingers online. Yes, fingers.
While this is a fairly specific scam targeting a very small subsection of people, the couple shared their story, warning people who might want to buy spare fingers not to do so via Facebook.
The 30 year old Thai man had an accident last year with a grass chopper that left him three fingers short on his left hand. His 24 year old wife set out to find a cheap replacement online.
They thought they’d hit the jackpot when they stumbled upon a Facebook page selling fingers for just 10,000 baht each. The online deal even had the option of visiting a centre in Nonthaburi or doing it all online, er, digit-ally.
They contacted a man called Golfsin via a LINE app chat and soon all the details were ironed out, including the size and colour. Crossing his remaining fingers, the man and his wife thought they had worked out a solution.
However, the company got the number of digits wrong at first, with only a middle and ring finger procured. This left the man with no one to point the finger at and no way to point anyway.
Then they thought that was fixed, but the online digits shop then delivered the wrong size and colour. They received something that was less like medical artificial fingers and more like a crudely-built glove.
When they complained that this was not what they had seen in the photos online, the company said that the pictures were taken in a dark room. Someone named Geng joined the LINE chat and did nothing but make excuses for the problems and delays. He didn’t lift a finger to help them.
The fed-up couple went public and fingered the online company to the press. The wife told Thai Rath that, using the LINE chat, she uncovered at least six people who had been ripped off buying artificial digits online.
They hope that the publicity will help them get the 30,000 baht that they paid back. In the end, they just wanted to company to give them the fingers they ordered. But the company seems to have just given them the finger instead.
