Tourists tell court they were duped over camera

Two British tourists flew from London to testify yesterday about how they were duped into buying a camera for twice its normal price.

Advertising managers Nigel Down and his partner Nicola Katav appeared in Kowloon City Court as witnesses in the trial of salesman Yu Wai-tung, of Union Digital World, Tsim Sha Tsui.

Yu, 41, had pleaded not guilty before magistrate Bruce McNair to a charge of attempted fraud for inducing Mr Down to buying a camera for $11,500 on May 1.

Mr Down, a regular business traveller to Hong Kong since 1992, told the court he was duped into buying the 6.3-megapixel Fuji FinePix S7000 camera after Yu told him it had a resolution of 16 megapixels.

Mr Down first bought a Nikon D70 digital camera for $7,000 on Ms Katav's credit card. But he was convinced by Yu that the Fuji model was better, so the salesman ripped up the credit card docket to void the transaction, the court heard. Mr Down was then told he had to pay an extra $960 to buy a Memory Stick device for the camera.

'I thought we were being naive at this point because the credit card was being swiped so many times,' Ms Katav said.