We hear of a cautionary tale from one of our readers who was nearly scammed when she attempted to sell an item of jewellery on the Asiaxpat website. She posted her item and when a buyer contacted her, sent it off to California. She then received a strange looking email from the buyer using Standard Chartered letterhead.
The item was being sold for US$2,000, but the buyer's email claimed that this amount was too low to be wired, and the bank required another HK$14,500 to enable the transaction to go through, which would be returned after the transaction was completed. The obvious craziness of this suggestion alerted our reader that something was wrong and she was fortunately able to contact UPS and tell them not to deliver the item.
Another woman was not so fortunate and explains on the website how she recently fell for this scam.