A local customer was sent a dead body bag in an act of revenge for posting low ratings on an online shop based in Fujian Province.

The customer, surnamed Xue, had ordered a pair of shoes from the online shop on taobao.com, China's largest online shopping platform. He received the shoes three days later but gave a poor rating to the shop because of the poor quality of the shoes and its slow delivery.

In return, he was bombarded with over 80 phone calls before being sent the body bag.

Xue traced the calls to Quanzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, where the shop is located. He blocked the offensive number with a cellphone software.

On August 30, Xue was stunned when he received a parcel which contained a black body bag. Xue immediately guessed it was a revenge act by the Quanzhou shop owner.

The 38 yuan body bag, including delivery, was ordered from taobao.com by an anonymous account which showed Xue's address for delivery.

Taobao confirmed on Tuesday that the anonymous account which had ordered the body bag belonged to the Quanzhou shop.

The e-commerce giant suspended the online shop and urged Xue to take follow-up action with police if the harassment continued.

The Quanzhou shop owner had earlier even tried to have a refrigerator delivered to Xue ― with payment to be made after delivery, which meant Xue had to pay for it.

On August 24, Xue received a call from a home appliance shop, which wanted to confirm the delivery time with Xue.

The home appliance shop, which was in the Pudong New Area, said the order was placed a day before by a man, who claimed to be a relative of Xue. The phone number was again traced to the Quanzhou online shop owner.

Taobao said it had suspended several accounts owned by the Quanzhou shop, which had received low ratings by other users as well.

Shop suspended

A customer service staff at Taobao said yesterday that customers should keep a copy of all messages and chat lines as proofs against harassment. Taobao said it would suspend the shops from its platform.

Online shop owners go to extremes to get a good credit rating for their shops, which are often a reference point for buyers before they make their purchases.

Some shops hire "agents" to build up a good credit rating by creating fake accounts, and leave high marks or decent comments on the stores' site.

In June, a man was detained for trying to blackmail a restaurant after posting negative comments on a popular restaurant reviews website.

The man demanded 4,500 yuan (US$721) from the restaurant owner for deleting the negative comments he had posted on dianping.com.

Some restaurant owners also pay for positive comments, paying anywhere between a few dozen yuan to over 10,000 yuan for good feedbacks.