Customs today arrested a director and a company secretary over alleged wrongful acceptance of payments, in contravention of the Trade Descriptions Ordinance (TDO).

The arrests were made after Customs received reports that private healthcare facilities operated by the company concerned had closed and subsequently failed to provide customers with services that had already been paid for.

Investigations revealed that before their suspected closure the facilities were still accepting payments for prepaid services.

Under the TDO, it is considered an offence if at the time of accepting payment a trader intends not to supply a product or intends to supply a materially different product, or if there is no reasonable ground for believing that the trader will be able to supply the product within a specified or reasonable period.

The arrests made were of a 61-year-old male director and a 31-year-old female company secretary.

As of 5pm on Wednesday, Customs and Police had received 1,686 reports in relation to the matter. They will continue to investigate and will take appropriate enforcement actions.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Council had received 844 complaints and said it will handle these in accordance with procedures.

On May 3, the Department of Health set up a dedicated telephone hotline, email address and WhatsApp number to handle public enquiries, free of charge. As of Wednesday, 112 enquiries had been received, including 50 concerning vaccines for children and 56 relating to vaccines for patients in other age groups.

The Government announced on May 2 that an inter-departmental team had been set up to look into the suspected closure of certain private healthcare facilities.