All because of $26.
The Johor Bahru nail salon seeking a woman who did not pay her 88 ringgit (S$26) bill shared her Singapore phone number on Facebook – which turned out to be the wrong number.
The number belonged to a teenage boy, who was harassed as a result, said Stomp contributor BH.
"Recently, a JB nail salon posted that a female customer had run away without payment and asked netizens for help to track her down," recounted the Stomp contributor.
"In their post, they had exposed photos of the customer captured from CCTV footage, and a mobile phone number supposedly belonging to the customer. Netizens replied, saying they would help track this customer down. This went viral with a few thousand 'likes' and the post was shared with media in Singapore and Malaysia.
"Unfortunately, the mobile number was a bogus number and it had belonged to a teenager under 18 years old.
"In the midst of the chaos, he was hit with many text and WhatsApp messages with profanities and threats. The voice calls he got throughout the day were not forgiving either. This boy, now traumatised, cried and pleaded with his parents to make it stop. The mobile numbers were from both Singapore and Malaysia.
"The nail salon claimed that the reply they got when they asked back for the money was rude. And that they had tried to call the number, but it got cut off every single time.
"In Singapore, there have been many public awareness campaigns to warn people of scam calls from overseas numbers. This was the reason why the boy never picked up the voice calls. Moreover, every time he picked up, the other party would just be spurting vulgarities.
"While the family was advised to just be patient and wait it out, they decided to cancel the boy’s mobile number and get a new one. Netizens complained they weren’t able to reach the 'culprit'.
"The last straw came when the boy received an email to him with his address details saying the e-mail sender will reveal his details with O$P$. Concerned about their safety, they made a police report.
"And just recently, the customer who forgot to pay resurfaced and paid up while the boy was still receiving threats, and said the number wasn't hers. We hope netizens would stop all threats to the innocent victim."
On April 18, the salon, Nailash, posted on Facebook that it has since received payment from the customer.
"She said that she totally forget about it and has apologised to us," said the post.
"She mentioned that the number we posted was not her number, but we have double-checked again. The number we posted was given to us by herself, but never mind. The important thing is our staff don’t need to bear the 88 ringgit. Smile is coming out.
"She mentioned that she WhatsApp-ed us when she saw her face going viral all over social media. We had a calm and sweet conversation over WhatsApp."
The salon has also removed its earlier post and requested others to do the same.
Two days later, in another Facebook post, Nailash said that the phone number it posted has been claimed to belong to a different owner, "which was given by the negligent debtor who misused our trust".
It added: "Kindly stop all calls, emails, social media and, most importantly, spam to this mobile number."
But it appears the damage has been done.
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This article was first published in Stomp. Permission required for reproduction.