每日英語跟讀 Ep.K328: Online scammer sold electronic gadgets, sent rotten bananas
A man surnamed Fang has been charged with concocting several nicknames to sell consumer electronics goods on social networking platforms concerned with second-hand items such as cellphones and game consoles. After one of his victims remitted payment for a graphics card, the buyer actually received a bunch of bananas, while someone else bought a Sony Playstation 5 game console but instead received tubes of toothpaste. The Kaohsiung City Police Department Criminal Investigation Corps (CIC) set up a task force, which traveled to Yilan County to search premises rented by Fang. Fang vehemently denied any involvement, but his denial was contradicted by evidence provided by the victims and a friend whose account had been used for the transaction. The police transferred him to the Yilan District Prosecutors’ Office on suspicion of fraud and a court granted the prosecutors’ request to hold him in detention.
一名姓方的男子被指控編造多個綽號，在與手機和遊戲機等二手商品有關的社交網絡平台上銷售消費電子產品。在他的一個受害者支付了顯卡費用後，買家實際上收到了一堆香蕉，而其他人購買了索尼 Playstation 5 遊戲機，卻收到了幾管牙膏。高雄市公安局刑偵總隊成立專案組，前往宜蘭縣搜查方某租用的房屋。方極力否認與此事有任何牽連，但他的否認與受害者提供的證據以及賬戶被用於交易的朋友提供的證據相矛盾。警方以涉嫌詐騙罪將他移送宜蘭區檢察院，法院批准了檢察機關拘留他的請求。
Speaking on Feb. 17, a spokesperson for the Kaohsiung CIC’s Eighth Detective Team said that a chip shortage and the COVID-19 pandemic have caused a worldwide shortage of PS5 game consoles, and this has forced people to buy them from second-hand device sales platforms instead, where they may even have to pay more than the recommended retail price. Realizing that many gamers were seeking to buy these devices through certain Facebook groups, 36-year-old Fang cooked up Facebook identities with nicknames like “Chou Chieh-lun,” “Chou Yu-min” and “Yang Lai-kuo” and offered to sell PS5 consoles, hot-selling second-hand cellphones and other consumer electronics goods at 10 percent off the market price. This attracted many people to place orders, but they ended up getting swindled.
2 月 17 日，高雄刑大八組發言人表示，晶片短缺和 COVID-19 大流行導致全球 PS5 遊戲機短缺，這迫使人們從二手設備銷售中購買它們相反，他們甚至可能不得不支付超過建議零售價的費用。意識到許多遊戲玩家正在通過某些 Facebook 群組尋求購買這些設備，36 歲的方方在 Facebook 上編造了“周杰倫”、“周玉敏”和“楊來國”等暱稱，並提供以低於市價 10% 的價格出售 PS5 遊戲機、熱銷的二手手機和其他消費電子產品。這吸引了很多人下訂單，但最終都被騙了。
The CIC estimates that at least 60 people fell victim to this scam between July last year and February this year, and were defrauded by a total of at least NT$1.2 million. Fang denied everything. He said he did not know “Chou Chieh-lun,” “Chou Yu-min” and “Yang Lai-kuo” and claimed that these three Facebook accounts did not belong to him.
刑大估計，去年7月至今年2月間，至少有60人受騙，被騙金額至少新台幣120萬元。方否認一切。他說他不認識“周杰倫”、“周玉敏”和“楊來國”，並聲稱這三個臉書賬號不屬於他。
The police believe that the suspect used this technique not only to evade the law by throwing up a smokescreen of civil disputes, but also to make his victims believe that the items had been mistakenly sent to the wrong recipients. This would make it take longer for his account to be put on a watch list, thus giving him more time to make his ill-gotten gains. After being arrested, Fang claimed that the cellphone was not his, but the police still handed him over to the prosecutors’ office on suspicion of fraud.
警方認為，犯罪嫌疑人利用這種技術不僅通過引發民事糾紛的煙幕來逃避法律，而且還使他的受害者相信這些物品被錯誤地發送給了錯誤的收件人。這將使他的帳戶被列入觀察名單的時間更長，從而使他有更多時間來賺取不義之財。被捕後，方稱手機不是他的，但警方仍以涉嫌詐騙罪將其移交檢察院。Source article: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2022/03/05/2003774192