Han Ximin

ximhan@126.com

A WOMAN was reprimanded by police and fined 500 yuan (US$74) for posting an exaggerated story online that “disrupted public order and caused panic.”

In the post circulated recently, the 32-year-old woman, surnamed Mo, described her experience of being forced to buy tea and being followed to the elevator in the lobby of the underground parking garage at the Four Seasons Hotel in Futian CBD on Tuesday.

“After I parked the car, a man stood beside my car and forced me to buy his tea,” Mo wrote in the post. Mo said she had rejected the man, but he followed her to the elevator lobby and attempted to prevent her from going up to the hotel.

“On the way, I saw several people standing beside a white Land Rover, and there weren’t any security guards in the parking garage and there was no signal to make a phone call or send a WeChat message. Luckily enough there was someone inside the elevator when the door opened, and I walked inside,” said Mo.

Mo claimed that when she returned to the parking garage for her car two hours later, she saw the men were scuffling with a woman near the white Land Rover.

“I immediately went up and told hotel staff that I had a heart problem and needed help. A female employee of the hotel accompanied me to the parking garage,” Mo claimed.

However, the police investigation and surveillance camera recordings showed the woman had exaggerated the facts. Video clips showed a man approached her on her way to the elevator lobby after she parked her car, but no one else followed her. They also showed that security guards regularly patrolled the underground parking garage. And phone signal were found available.

The video clips showed the white Land Rover had already left before the woman returned, and there was no scuffle between the men and another woman. Mo left the parking garage alone without being accompanied by a hotel employee, as she had claimed.

In a release yesterday, the local police said Mo had been punished for disrupting public order. In a letter of apology, Mo sought a pardon for making such an irresponsible description of a confused situation. The police also detained three people for seven days for their involvement in swindling under false pretences of tea sellers.