Customers cry foul in redemption of coupons
More than 40 customers complained to police after failing to redeem HK$21,000 worth of meal coupons for a Tsim Sha Tsui restaurant from a group-buying website.
A check of internet forums shows customers of the JigoCity website are demanding repayments amid worries that the company may shut down. They say the restaurant, Darts 1 Bar, has already closed.
JigoCity's service hotline was suspended earlier this week and it does not have an office in Admiralty any more. '[JigoCity users] started complaining two weeks ago that they could not book tables at the restaurant Darts 1 Bar,' said Kenneth Yuen Wai-kit, administrator of the MonMonHK watchdog, which monitors group-buying sites.
Last week, customers who called were diverted to a voice mail service, and they later found the restaurant was closed, he said.
JigoCity, which has 27,460 fans on Facebook, posted a notice on its Hong Kong and Macau website, saying the company was undergoing business restructuring. It said no new coupons would be sold but the site would continue to function until all the sold coupons were redeemed.
Its Malaysian website also said coupon sales would be discontinued. The website serving the mainland has not made any announcement.
Tsim Sha Tsui police received 42 complaints over the restaurant's closure. Shoppers complained online that they had obtained no response to e-mails sent to the firm.
Some said they had come across restaurants that refused to redeem JigoCity coupons as they had not received payments from the firm.
A Consumer Council spokeswoman said users should file complaints when they had doubts about a company. 'All group-buying coupons require prepayments. We advise shoppers to refrain from excessive buying.'
70
The number of complaints received by the Consumer Council in the first two months of this year over failure to redeem coupons
