Popular Chinese Scams

Do you want to be taller? If the answer is yes, then exotic Hong Kong beauty salons may have a solution.

From Khaleej Times:

A student in Hong Kong was conned by a beauty parlour into paying more than 7,000 US dollars for electric shock treatment and a 'magical' cream to make her taller, a news report said Friday.

The case is one of 13 highlighted by the territory's Democratic Party, which wants to see tighter controls on beauty parlours offering dubious and expensive treatments to gullible clients.

The undergraduate was told the electric current would stimulate growth of soft tissues and increase her height but was refused a refund when she found the pain of the treatment too much to bear, the South China Morning Post reported.

In another case, a 24-year-old woman was persuaded to pay 1,000 US dollars for electric-current treatment, which she was told, would give her western-style 'double eyelids.'

She was later told she had too much fat around her eyes and was persuaded to pay another 920 US dollars for intense light treatment to reduce the fat, the newspaper said.

The treatment left her in pain with swollen eyelids and unable to see properly and was dismissed by a plastic surgeon as useless for removing fat or creating double eyelids, a sought-after treatment in Asian beauty salons.

I won't be critical of the Chinese for buying into the scams since I know that Americans can be just as stupid.