Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    ON the night of March 11, a missing person alert spread across Qingdao, a coastal city in Shandong Province, on social media platforms. A lady surnamed Chen reported her 60-year-old father missing.

    The family and friends went everywhere in search of the old man, but sadly, several hours later, they found his body on a beach. With the body was a note with the man’s last words on it stating why he killed himself.

    The daughter was unable to figure out why a sanguine and pleasant person like her father chose to end his own life without any signs. The suicide note revealed the truth.

    A company named Xiangshang had been attempting to persuade him to purchase health-care products for a long time, eventually successfully tricking him into buying 60,000 yuan (US$8,700) worth of “health-care products,” according to the note.

    The company promised to arrange for him and his wife a tour of a number of attractions including Mt. Yuntaishan, Xi’an and Bali after he made the purchase. But they made good on none of the promises, and nor did the old man get the products he had paid for.

    Everyone who saw the tear-jerking words was heartbroken: “Seeing the evaporation of our savings of nearly 100,000 yuan, accumulated through decades of hard work and thrift of my wife and I, I feel terribly sorry...”

    The tragic story highlighted a long-standing yet long-neglected issue: thousands of companies are doing no genuine business at all but targeting elderly people, pestering and forcing them to buy health and fitness products at shamelessly inflated prices. They have been defrauding the lonely and vulnerable elderly without being punished for too long!

    During China Central Television’s annual “3.15” quality investigation program on the night of March 15, a host laid bare how racketeers have squeezed the aged of their money, much of which was their life savings, in an elaborately designed and executed manner.

    Salespersons will stand on a busy street, approaching passing seniors, offering them some tin-pot gifts and collecting their contact numbers.

    Once some of them showed interest, they lose no time in bombarding them with hard-sell pitches — part flattery, part intimidation.

    The half-hesitant seniors are then taken to brainwashing lectures, where some silver-tongued, fake specialists reel off “knowledge on scientific health care” and “serious consequences” if their “advice” is ignored.

    In their efforts to snare their prey, these swindlers have made a close study of the weaknesses of many old people and have devised a host of tricks. Free gifts always work. One company offered 100 free eggs with a string attached: 10 given on one’s first attendance, 20 on the second, 30 on the third and 40 on the fourth, but additional heads must be brought along from the second time.

    Having successfully lured a large number of would-be victims, these con artists then started a screening process to kick out those with no intention of purchasing products. They would sell membership cards at 10 yuan and eliminate whoever did not buy one.

    Then came the critical part: closing the net. The hustlers were quite sure that they were able to make these old people surrender their nest eggs.

    They had obtained information about the victims’ health conditions, including some specific illnesses, and surprised the victims when the quacks “accurately” diagnosed their conditions. Convinced that their lives were in danger if they didn’t take the “medicine” prescribed by the “magic doctor,” many victims would be willing to buy the “lifesaving drugs.”

    By hook or by crook, these outrageous thugs cheated elderly people out of millions of yuan, leaving many distraught, irritated and devastated.

    Many victims kept their family in the dark after their money was lost and the truth didn’t come to light until something tragic occurred, just as in the case of the old man in Qingdao.

    Such unscrupulous profiteers are everywhere now; there are at least a dozen around my neighborhood and they seem to be doing well without trouble.

    These swindlers must be charged with the crime of fraud or illegal medical practice. Tolerance of such a crime itself is a crime!

    (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer)