A Taiwanese gentleman spent £258,000 trying to buy a croissant, before realising it was a scam. The man, identified in a local newspaper only by his surname, received an email promising "French bread so delicious it will make you cry" and a picture of the delicacy he'd receive for the bargain price of 99 Taiwanese dollars (£2.12). As a company executive, Chiu decided that was worth the price, the 'Apple Daily' paper reports. He then transferred the money to the bakery in question. But the croissant never came. The company called him back, saying there had been a mistake, so he re-sent the money. But the calls didn't stop coming. A bank manager, a representative of the "Monetary Supervision Commission" and many more all repeated the request to transfer the money again and again. Some even said he had to re-send the cash or be accused of money laundering. It was only after the seventh transmission of cash, and after he'd transferred 12 million Taiwanese dollars (£258,000), that he realised he'd been scammed, the 'Apple Daily' reports. He might never know how delicious the promised croissant would have been, but trying to buy it might well have made him cry. The dangers of scammers Sadly, it's not just in Taiwan that people lose money thanks to conmen. The Office of Fair Trading reports that half the UK population is targeted by a scammer every year, with three million Britons losing a total of £3.5 billion between them as a result. Scammers target everything from mobile phones through to online shopping and even tax refunds — anything that can key into people's greed, fear, hope, sympathy or even trust and target the most vulnerable people they can. They also circulate lists of names, addresses and telephone numbers of likely targets and previous victims — known as sucker's lists — as these are more likely to fall prey again. Read How to stay off scammers' sucker's lists to see how to avoid getting on these lists and The 10 most-common scams to give you and idea of what to watch for.
IMHO, anyone who is stupid enough to be scammed out of £258,000 for baked goods, deserves it. Then they should put him up against a wall a shoot him for being so stupid. handoff1
Do the calculations, the guy plus his bank manager and the other ijits clocked up appox 121,698 attempts to buy a croissant. Looool
ridiculous... this man was not in his right mind at all. no baked good is worth that much to fawn over. unless there is so much gold dust garnishing it that it sums up to that price.
