More than 3 million yuan defrauded in 5 days! Behind the hot sales of masks: Be careful of your circle of friends

Today (February 11) is the second day for many companies to resume work. Have you changed your career to sell masks?

Affected by the epidemic, masks have become the best-selling product at the moment. In China, companies that make garments make masks, companies that make cars make masks, companies that make finance make masks, companies that make e-commerce make masks...

Not only are masks hard to come by in China, but they are also sold out on foreign e-commerce platforms. Take Amazon for example, in the past 30 days, the following mask-related keyword search records have shown the following trends:

In the past 30 days, the sales of "surgical masks" are as follows:

Data source: Jungle Scout

According to JS plug-in data, the average monthly sales of the first 48 listings that pop up after searching for the keyword "surgical mask" is 4,347 pieces . If calculated in total, 7,800 surgical mask sets can be sold on Amazon every day .

Since most surgical masks come in boxes of 100, approximately 23.7 million surgical masks were sold in the United States in 2020 - this is data derived solely from keyword statistics.

On Amazon, a pack of 20 3M masks costs 274.88 yuan, which is 13.75 yuan per piece, and they are only available after February 11. N95 masks are sold on Ebay, but 4 pieces cost 282 yuan, which is 70.5 yuan per piece. In addition, a pack of 5 3M masks on AliExpress costs 119 yuan, a pack of 10 costs 161 yuan, and a pack of 20 costs 280 yuan. The lowest price per piece is 14 yuan, which is comparable to the price on Amazon.

It is reported that before Amazon's own products were out of stock, the price of N95 masks was $13.28 . Now, the price of N95 masks is $63.95 , an increase of 582% .

"Last week, N95 masks were still $1 (about 7 yuan) each, but this week the price has risen to $9 (about 63 yuan) in drugstores, and they are also sold out very quickly," said Zhang Yue, a student at the University of California, Los Angeles. It is estimated that the price of masks in the area has increased by 800% .

Despite this, sales are still strong. According to statistics, the net sales of one mask by Amazon's best-selling seller reached 25,530 .

In addition to selling on major e-commerce platforms, many people are also selling masks on WeChat Moments .

Xiaozhi discovered that the rhetoric and copywriting of masks in Moments are basically the same:

Moreover, almost everyone who sells masks on WeChat Moments has posted the above sentence - " A full refund for anxious friends ."

Regarding this type of excessive distribution of information in the circle of friends, which requires full payment in advance, Xiaozhi reminds everyone to carefully identify it, because it is very likely that you will fall into someone else's trap if you are not careful . It is very likely that the initiator does not have any masks at all , not even one, but just wants to use the huge minimum order quantity + group order to attract kind-hearted people to forward and pull down the line , and a large amount of cash will be collected in the hands of the "initiator". To put it bluntly, this may also be a "pig killing scheme" .

Once the money is in hand, the initiator can:

Some people say, can't we get a full refund? Under the current circumstances, most people either do it out of face (most people's buyers are not the initiators, but their friends in the circle of friends), or they think that if they return the product, they will not be able to buy it anywhere else, so they might as well wait, just in case they can buy it.

Here, Xiaozhi is not targeting those who sell masks in WeChat Moments, but there have been a lot of cases of people being defrauded when buying masks in WeChat Moments recently, and some people have defrauded more than 3 million...

The Nantong Public Security Bureau of Jiangsu Province also cracked a major "mask fraud" case and captured four suspects. It is reported that the suspect Chen committed fraud during the epidemic prevention and control period. He downloaded mask advertisements from the Internet without any supply, and promoted the "sale" of masks at extremely low prices through WeChat and other channels. He also set a "threshold" of 10,000 masks for sale, defrauding more than 3 million yuan in just 5 days .

The police seized two suitcases filled with cash in the garage of a criminal suspect's home, with a total of 3.09 million yuan in cash .  

The biggest victim of this case, Ms. An, was browsing WeChat Moments when she saw her friend Wei post an advertisement for selling N95 masks. After learning that the other party's source of goods was a mutual WeChat friend Chen, Ms. An took the initiative to contact Chen and agreed that Ms. An would post an advertisement for selling masks on WeChat Moments and then forward the order information she received to Chen. After confirming the order, Ms. An would pay the purchase price on a daily basis.

In a few days, Ms. An received more than 800 orders. However, she found that neither she nor her customers had received the goods sent by Chen, and Chen could no longer be contacted. Only then did she realize that she had been cheated. At this time, Ms. An had been defrauded of more than 1.5 million yuan in payment for goods .

Masks are in short supply. In addition to this "empty-handed" scam, fake masks are rampant. Previously, 11 boxes of unmarked masks totaling more than 50,000 masks were seized in Yiwu, Zhejiang, and the person involved was detained.

In fact, problematic masks are not only appearing in China, but also on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon. Many masks marked with Coronavirus for sale on Amazon, including health and personal care best sellers, do not provide any information on whether the masks can actually prevent the wearer from contracting or spreading the coronavirus.

Recently, Amazon is investigating the sellers of this best-selling mask and has removed some masks from the shelves. Some masks are no longer available for purchase on the Amazon website.

It is reported that the mask ranked first in Amazon's health and personal care products has been removed, and Amazon's best seller mask products have also been taken off the shelves . Its description is: 5X Flu Medical Face Mask | Virus (virus) | Coronavirus (coronavirus) | SARS | Norovirus | Protected in Sealed Bags | UK Stock.

In addition, a 3M mask sold at a price of 210 pounds was also removed . Even the best-selling sellers were poisoned by Amazon. It seems that although masks are easy to sell, they also have to bear considerable risks. Sellers should do it within their means.

WeChat Moments, e-commerce platforms, domestic and foreign markets... Nowadays, masks are hard to come by and scams are everywhere, so please be careful when buying masks!