A SHENZHEN company was allegedly involved in illegal fundraising after it sold over-priced health products to customers in order to buy stocks, a local TV news program reported Monday.

    A resident, surnamed Chen, said that his father paid 15,000 yuan (US$2,209) for five health products from the company named Huaxia Senior Website after he attended a lecture hosted by the company, but he has not received the products since making the payment.

    When the reporter, along with Chen and his father, went to the company’s office in Luohu District on Sunday and requested a refund, the company’s staffers agreed to return the money to Chen.

    A staffer said that the company didn’t produce health products, but that it helped another company, Yuanlide, sell its products. However, the reporter couldn’t find the same product that the company had sold to Chen’s father on Yuanlide’s website, and a similar health product was priced at a few hundred yuan on Taobao.com, while the company sold the product to Chen’s father for 2,980 yuan.

    Many customers were persuaded by the company’s staffers to buy the high-priced products because the company promised that each buyer would be offered stocks in Yuanlide and AliHealth, according to the report.

    According to Chen, the company was actually raising money from its customers in order to buy AliHeath stock, but it’s uncertain whether the company would really have given the stocks to the buyers. (Zhang Yang)