I am really amazed at the "World Class" standards our EZ Link
system has been hyping about themselves.
I took a 8 minutes bus ride yesterday night using my ezlink card.
To my amusement, it charged me $1.43 while normally, its only 63
cents. Thus, I walked up to the lady driver and ask why is that so?
She was puzzled and finally found out that the system in her bus
screwed up. For some reasons, the satellite driven EZ system has
malfunctioned and the stop that it dictated to the bus' computer
system has "jumped" tremendously!
INteresting enough, I asked the bus driver what to do. She said go
and claim from SMRT! That's a bit strange because I was taking a
SBS bus!
Anyway, I took the trouble to go to the nearby MRT station and
state my claim. To my surprise, they refused to refund me
immediately and say they have to check. I ask them what is there to
check? Didn't my EZ link card contains enough information like what
time what place I board the bus, at what time I alighted the bus?
Strange enough, the lady at the counter says she cannot see that
information! She wanted me to come back one week later! Gosh! For
some stupid mistake of their multi million dollar "World Class"
system, I have to waste my time to come back to them?
I find it unacceptable. The whole system and customer service is
all screwed up! The most funny thing is that when I say I will be
out of town for a long time, they say they will send the 80 cents
cheque to me! Hahahaha! For that little 80 cents, they want to
waste money on stamps to mail me a cheque!
I think the whole design of the systm is all screwed up. It didn't
take into account of customer service and apparently, the database
is not well designed. It cannot track any details on bus schedules
as well as location information on timing basis. And for such small
matters they need 7 days to settle, that's what "WORLD CLASS"
system is all about?
Anyway, the EZ Link is anything but "World Class". It is just a
badly designed junk to the IT world if it couldn't even use IT's
advantage to solve simple problem like this.
Anyway, for those of you out there, please be careful when you use
your EZ link card. Always check the amount deducted by the EZ link
system. We should never trust this IT junk too much. In statistical
terms, the error is quite high, sometimes even without people
knowing! I have discovered numerous times how they over charge me
for short ride but this time is really too much when they actually
have installed the satellite tracking system.
Goh Meng Seng
