Business hit by coronavirus, struggling hawkers worry about new problem - loan sharks

As if the Covid-19 pandemic hasn't hit hawkers badly enough, they now have got a new problem to worry about — loan sharks.

Despite tightened circuit breaker measures preventing them from turning up at their victims' houses, loan sharks still managed to harass them by sending tons of food delivery their way, expecting them to foot the bill.

Except, the ones paying are not the families, but the hawkers themselves. Some of whom have lost hundreds of dollars.

One of them is 26-year-old Ivan who runs a bak chor mee business.

In a Facebook post, he wrote that he received an order of 16 bowls on Saturday (April 18) afternoon for an HDB unit in Marine Parade.

When Ivan arrived at the address, however, he found an A4 piece of paper stuck to the wall that read: "Please note that we do not order online parcels, we have not ordered any food or other things at all."

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The occupants warned against knocking on the door and advised deliverymen to leave as the flat was under surveillance by the police, lest they be seen as accomplices to whoever it was that placed the order.

He later understood that the flat's owner had been on the receiving end of these "food deliveries", with one of them coming at 2am. Despite speaking with the police for two hours, there was no one to foot the bill.

A 40-year-old owner of a Thai food stall was another one of the few hawkers affected.

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Speaking with Shin Min Daily News, he shared that he received two separate orders on April 15, worth around $50 and $100 each, that were meant to be delivered to addresses in Bukit Merah and Ang Mo Kio.

Both calls had cited having issues with internet connectivity due to Starhub's network outage that day and thus requested to pay cash on delivery.

It was only after his delivery rider arrived at the Bukit Merah address that they were informed by the occupants that they hadn't ordered anything.

"I initially thought we might have sent it to the wrong address but the owner said they experienced the same problem a couple of days before. They believed they might have been harassed by loan sharks and have since made a police report."

As for the leftover food, it was brought back and redistributed among the employees.

Since the circuit breaker measures kicked in on April 7, customers are not allowed to dine in eateries such as hawker centres, which meant much lower footfall there.

The Thai food hawker lamented: "The pandemic has already affected our business, this is just adding salt to wounds."

The moderators and admins of local Facebook group Hawkers United - Dabao 2020 have since posted about such individuals, warning owners to collect advance payment as well as note down where their orders come from in order to protect themselves.

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rainercheung@asiaone.com

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