One tiny careless moment can lead you to get scammed out of your hard-earned money. But what if people take advantage of your physical disability to trick you into charging more for a service that usually costs less? One man from China faced an ugly situation when he was conned into paying 10,000 yuan (US $1,402) for a 20 yuan (US $2.8) haircut, reports South China Morning Post. The salon owners even bullied him on the spot to get a loan so he could pay the exorbitant amount for the haircut.

The man, who has been identified as Mr. Li, is a restaurant worker in the eastern Chinese region of Hangzhou located in the Zhejiang province. The man had apparently moved there in March 2023 and in late April, his friend gave him a 20 yuan gift card from the Beijixing Hair Salon And suggested he use it to get a basic haircut. According to the reports of Zhejiang TV, Mr. Li walked into the salon, showed the staff his gift card and was told that he will receive a message before the haircut.

The salon staff then proceeded to put a lotion on Li’s face and suggested that the lotion was available for purchase at 398 yuan which is approximately $55 a bottle. The manager showed up next to coax Li into buying yet another gift card so he could get additional discounts. But little did this clueless customer know that he was about to get scammed big time. Mr. Li agreed to buy a 5000 yuan (US $701) gift card and had to wait for a while to get his haircut when another salon employee appeared with a price list for the salon’s services. Due to being short-sighted, Li needed his glasses to read through the price list. Since he couldn’t read through the price list properly, he agreed to receive the services of the salon without checking further.

After getting a lot of small bottles poured on his head, the barber informed him that Mr. Li’s bill is 598 yuan (US $ 83.84) per bottle and the total bill is around 7000 yuan (US $981.44). Mr. Li realized that the ultimate bill will be higher than his 5000 yuan gift card and he told the staff that he doesn’t have any more money left to pay them. In response to the poor customer, several salon staff appeared and began to pressure him into taking out a fast approval loan using his phone. Mr. Li didn’t even get a chance to protest against them since one employee snatched his phone and proceeded to borrow 5,000 yuan from a credit app under his name.

“I had to pass my mobile phone to them. I was frightened at that moment,” Li confessed, per the outlet. “I came to Hangzhou just a month ago. I feared they would beat me up or do other bad things to me because there were so many of them while I was alone.” After getting scammed, Li called the local television network Zhejiang TV and hoped that the media coverage of this situation can help him in his misery and hopefully, he can recover his money. As public officials from the local market authority began investigating the matter, the Beijixing Hair Salon stopped operating mysteriously and the owners of the business were unreachable. Well, looks like Mr. Li wasn’t the only one who faced this kind of scam because allegations of deceptive behaviors and aggressive sales strategies are becoming an issue in China lately.