[pinkypanther]

Lured by the promise of yields approaching 12%, gifts such as Dyson air purifiers and Gucci bags, and the guarantee of China's top-selling developer, tens of thousands of investors bought wealth management products through China Evergrande Group.


Now, many fear they may never get their investments back after the cash-strapped property developer recently stopped repaying some investors and set off global alarm bells over its massive debt.


Some have been protesting at Evergrande offices, refusing to accept the company's plan to provide payment with discounted apartments, offices, stores and parking units, which it began to implement on Saturday.


"I bought from the property managers after seeing the ad in the elevator, as I trusted Evergrande for being a Fortune Global 500 company,” said  the owner of an Evergrande property in the conglomerate's home province of Guangdong surnamed Du.


"It's immoral of Evergrande not to pay my hard-earned money back," said the  investor, who had put 650,000 yuan ($100,533) into Evergrande wealth management products (WMPs) last year at an interest rate of more than 7%.


More than 80,000 people – including employees, their families and friends as well as owners of Evergrande properties - bought WMPs that raised more than 100 billion yuan in the past five years, said a sales manager of Evergrande Wealth, launched in 2016 as a peer-to-peer (P2) online lending platform that originally was used to fund its property projects.

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