THE Lazada online mall has been a venue for scams, two of which I myself encountered just in a space of a month. With capital of over $1 billion, the firm, owned by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma through Alibaba, isn't even doing anything to boot out these scammers from their website, even after being informed of these swindlers.

One kind of scam is the sale of fake Xiaomi products and, I presume, other well-known, reliable brands at a 'huge discount' prominently advertised. I bought from a seller Manila_MALL (sic) ' a 'Xiaomi Robot Vacuum Cleaner 3 in 1 Intelligent Automatic Sweeping Robot' (see image).