Dozens of customers in Hong Kong have lodged complaints to the city’s consumer watchdog after buying coupons totalling more than HK$100,000 (US$12,700) from closed bakery chain Crostini.

Gilly Wong Fung-han, chief executive of the Consumer Council, said one patron spent HK$10,500 on 350 coupons at a wedding expo last year, the highest amount involved among the cases.

“We found that 21 cases had purchased their coupons while at a wedding expo, while 13 bought theirs from the store,” Wong told a radio programme on Friday.  

She said the council had received a total of 34 complaints related to the coupons issued by the store, amounting to about HK$107,000 spent.

Crostini announced the closure of its 15 branches citywide on Wednesday, with owner Wong Kwong-fai blaming the end of a government rent-deferral scheme.

Under the arrangement launched in May to keep businesses afloat amid the pandemic-hit economy, landlords were forbidden from terminating tenancies, cutting services or taking legal action against tenants in vulnerable sectors for failing to pay rent on time.

Wong Kwong-fai said landlords had started to chase him for payments after the end of the three-month scheme in July, and he had chalked up HK$80 million in loans to cover staff salaries.

Simon Wong Ka-wo, president of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades, said on Thursday that businesses were in a precarious position after the end of the deferral scheme and the extension of Covid-19 social-distancing rules for dining establishments.

He noted that some 8,000 or up to 60 per cent of restaurants citywide were under pressure from landlords to settle rent, with up to 3,000 still negotiating payment terms.

Separately, Annie Tse Yau On-yee, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Retail Management Association, told another radio programme on Friday that an estimated 30 to 40 per cent of retail businesses had made use of the scheme, with most being small and medium-sized enterprises.

“Even the food and beverage industry is estimating several thousand businesses will close down ... If you need retail businesses to pay back all their rent at once and the landlord is not assisting them or is understanding, I believe the wave of closures will be quite worrying,” she said.

Consumer Council chief Wong said if Crostini customers wanted their money back, they would need to have kept the purchase receipts of the vouchers and recall their mode of transaction.

Those with a receipt and who had paid using a credit card could get their money back under the refund mechanism from the issuing company, but this will depend on respective bank policies.

But customers who paid through credit card instalments will not benefit from this arrangement as they had borrowed the money from banks, according to Wong.

She noted other customers could apply as debtors once a liquidator for the company was appointed, which could allow for some refunds.

 - SCMP