Top employees at Taiwan Svenson Hair Co were indicted on fraud charges yesterday for allegedly selling common shampoo products with no medical properties at unreasonably high prices.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted the owner of the company, Chen Ying-chi (陳穎祺), 48, and four of the company’s officials.
Prosecutors said Svenson has run seven stores in Taiwan since 2005. The company sells 47 highly priced hair health and restoration products and offers courses on hair health and rejuvenation.
Prosecutors said a customer surnamed Soong (宋), 24, had spent more than NT$460,000 on Svenson’s products and courses, but found they had had no impact on his hair loss.
Soong subsequently filed a fraud lawsuit with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office against the company.
Prosecutors said Hong Kong movie star Waise Lee (李子雄) had been hired to endorse the products in an advertisement.
They said Lee, who has a hair loss problem, wore a wig to prove his hair had been restored.
Prosecutors said they believed the company might have committed fraud.
Prosecutors said a man surnamed Wang (王) also endorsed Svenson’s products in an advertisement. The company allegedly filmed the man after having him cut his hair to make it look as though he had less hair and then filmed him one month later after his hair had grown back.
In a further move designed to win public trust, prosecutors said the company had movie star Aaron Chen (陳昭榮) and TV variety show host Hsu Nai-lin (徐乃麟) promote the company’s products.
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
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The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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