An employee at a 7/11 store was exposed by Facebook page สายสืบออนไลน์ V2 on 12 March 2020 after she posted on her personal Facebook page masks for sale at high prices. Covid-19 has made medical masks and anti-pollution masks extremely hard to find and when you do find masks they are often sold at extremely high prices. A medical mask retails for about 2 THB per mask and commonly comes in packs of 50 masks. Today the same masks are being sold at 13-17 THB per mask and N95 respirators are being sold at about 100 THB per piece. Although the prices are high, the people are willing to pay as a security protection for their families, especially for those who have to leave home every day.
The Facebook page captioned the post “This girl wants to stop working. A 7/11 employee in Nong Chok, Bangkok has hoarded masks that were delivered to the branch for customers. She is reselling the masks at high prices on social media. The girl is using her position as an employee of the store to take advantage of other people. Hoarding products like this should not only get her fired, she should be prosecuted. #onlinedetective”.
The original post made by the girl was to a Facebook group consisting of other Nong Chok residents. The girl posted along with pictures of the masks in a 7/11 basket, “Anyone looking for these? Not overpriced. I have child masks and normal adult masks. Good ones 329 THB, normal masks 59 for 2, 99 for 5. IB me if you’re interested”.
Shortly after the information went out, CPALL gave a statement that they have investigated the issue and the girl did hoard the masks for sale. The masks are from when there were high levels of PM 2.5 in Thailand during January of this year. The company has ordered the store manager to terminate the employee and measures have been taken to make sure incidents like this don’t occur again.
FB Caption: “Anyone looking for these? Not overpriced. I have child masks and normal adult masks. Good ones 329 THB, normal masks 59 for 2, 99 for 5. IB me if you’re interested”.
Source: Kapook, Facebook Page: สายสืบออนไลน์ V2