HCM CITY — The Ministry of Industry and Commerce’s HCM City Market Surveillance Agency on Sunday inspected three Con Cưng Co Ltd stores, a retailer that sells baby products in HCM City, for possible fraud.

Trần Hùng, deputy head of the agency, said that inspectors found numerous violations related to product origin.

At a Con Cưng store in District 1, for example, a belly massage cream had a product information stamp glued over printed information that had conflicting details about the origin. Also, small “Made in Thailand” cards were attached to hangers with clothing that did not have proper origin stamps or labels.

Another store in District 3 was selling several children’s non-prescription eyeglasses with unclear origin.

Hùng said the agency was confiscating products with unclear origin and would conduct more investigations at the company’s stores in other provinces.

On May 22, customer Trương Đình Công Vĩnh bought several products from Con Cưng, and later found that a set of clothing showed signs of fraudulent and unclear origin.

He filed a complaint with the Việt Nam Competition Authority’s department of consumer protection.

Nguyễn Hồng Liễu, head of Con Cưng’s legal department, told Tuổi Trẻ (Youth) newspaper on Sunday that the company had recalled the product batch containing nearly 6,000 products from which the faulty clothes originated, and sent apologies and coupons to affected customers on June 13.

The product batch, which was granted a certificate of origin by Thai authorities, used materials from Thailand and other ASEAN countries, according to the company.

Liễu said the batch, however, did not meet the company’s standards because it had not thoroughly inspected all of the products.

The company was unsure whether product batches contained faulty products and was working with authorities involved in the investigation, she said. — VNS