VietNamNet Bridge – Nearly two weeks after the auction for charity, which was announced to raise millions of US dollars for flood victims in the central region, the HCM City Red Cross on November 23 said they were cheated.

The giant gemstone which was auctioned for VND11 billion.

The association chair Nguyen Thi Hue said the association has organized many charity auctions and it was several time cheated by swindlers who committed to purchase auctioned items at high prices or promised to donate a lot of money but they didn’t keep their promises. However, this is the most serious case.

The auction, organized by Gia Gia Gemstone JS Company, took place at HCM City’s Queen Plaza on November 11. The event was registered in Vietnamese records as the charity auction that attracted over 90 contestants of the Miss Earth 2010 pageant and hundreds of businessmen.

The auction was also broadcast on international television channels like NBC and StarWorld and many local channels.

The set of the four sacred creatures ‘Dragon-Unicorn-Tortoise-Phoenix’ was sold for VND47.9 billion (over $2 million). Its starting price was VND40 billion. The millennial Thang Long-Hanoi kettledrum fetched VND12 billion for charity. A gemstone picture with signatures of all 90 Miss Earth candidates was sold at VND3 billion. A giant gemstone was auctioned for 11 billion dong by a man who called himself Phat, a representative of the Binh Dien company in Long An province. The organizing board stated to collect nearly VND74 billion ($3.7 million) from the auction.

“When we called the winners of the auction for the gemstone painting and the bronze drum, they didn’t answer the phone. The Binh Dien company said that there was no man of that name representing the firm at the auction,” Hue said.

The auction winner for the four sacred creatures, Bao Long Ceramic Company, didn’t pay for the items because the owner of the four creatures asked Bao Long company to directly pay the money (VND47.9 billion dong) to them and this firm would donate money to flood victims itself. Bao Long company disagreed and it donated VND1 billion to the HCM City Red Cross.

Bao Long said that it only paid the HCM City Red Cross, not the owner of the items.

Actually, the HCM City Red Cross has only collected over VND1 billion ($50,000) out of VND74 billion dong.

A representative of the organizing board, Dinh Gia Dien, said they were cheated by auctioneers who used false phone numbers to attend the auction.

“Perhaps they exploited us to advertise their brands or they treated the auction as a joke. Moreover, the event hosts might be inexperienced or they were anxious to sell items at high prices so they were cheated,” Dien explained.

Dien said some companies that he knew offered high prices at the auction but swindlers offered higher prices than them. “We have consulted lawyers and will report this case to police,” he said.

PV