Customers of the Groupon company Nhom Mua (www.nhommua.com) are greatly
concerned as the website is now inaccessible and the company’s headquarters has
been blockaded by economic police.
Operating with the groupon model,
Nhom Mua is a deal-of-the-day website that features products at discounted
prices and vouchers usable at several local companies, including fashion shops,
cafés, restaurants, and household product stores.
Its customers nationwide are now
worried that they may not be able to use their purchased vouchers or receive
the products they ordered as the company has seemingly shut down.
In the worse-case scenario, the
buyers may not get any refunds for the vouchers or products they have bought.
“I’ve bought several vouchers
from the company. They all still have valid usage dates but I’m not sure if I
can use them for transactions now,” said N.T.B., a resident in Ho Chi Minh
City’s District 10.
Some restaurants and stores
announced shortly after the news of the company’s potential shutdown broke that
they will not accept vouchers bought from Nhom Mua until the case is cleared.
Some buyers have contacted the
company’s customer care service, and were told that the company is “upgrading
its system and is expected to resume operation next week,” newswire VTC quoted
a Nhom Mua attendant as saying.
The customer care attendant
assured customers that the purchased vouchers are still usable, while denying
the rumor that the company is experiencing an internal conflict.
System failure
“The company system is currently
experiencing a technical fault as we are reviewing the entire system of the
country, so Internet transactions cannot be completed,” said newly-assigned
company director Kyle Pham.
On November 13 a video clip
titled “Investors quelling Nhom Mua employees” was circulated on the internet
showing a group of security guards with armor, helmets, and bludgeons fighting
another group of people wearing blue T-shirts displaying the Nhom Mua text.
“The clip might have been posted
following the incident caused by a misunderstanding during the transferring
process between the old and new director,” Pham said.
Kyle Pham was on Tuesday
appointed to take over the director chair of Nhom Mua, as its founder, Tom
Tran, is currently being inspected by Vietnamese economic police and was forced
to exit Vietnam last week, Saigon Tiep Thi newspaper reported.
The company headquarters in Ho
Chi Minh City was thus blockaded on Tuesday for an inspection related to Tran,
who was said to have embezzled company assets and conducted several
non-transparent internal transactions.
Pham said the fight was initiated
when a female employee under the erstwhile director refused to hand over the
company stamp to the new board.
“She then telephoned someone
outside for help, and the clip must have been filmed when our guards prevented
the outsiders from entering the company,” he explained.
The new director said Nhom Mua’s
Internet transactions will not be able to resume operation until November 20.
The company has worked with its
partners and ensured that all transactions using vouchers from Nhom Mua are
still valid, he said.
“Customers will get a refund if
they cannot use the vouchers,” he promised.
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