It seems the situation is so bad that the consumer
association is about to launch an accreditation programme to
clean up the Rochor Canal Road shopping complex, a famous
hang-out for tech geeks and tourists alike who can spend hours
trawling the six floors of IT hardware and
consumer electronics shops.
The mall has a dismal record — the number of consumer complaints
against its shops has gone up for five years straight. Nearly 250
were filed with Case last year, 30 per cent more than in 2007.
Sure, I’ve heard about one or two rotten eggs, but 250!
I’m now pretty sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Among the major complaints are customers being
fleeced, salespeople making misleading claims and shops
selling defective goods.
Recently, it was reported that
someone ended up paying $950 for a PSP while it was quoted to
him at $334. Although this particular case was more a theft
than a con, it happened at SLS.
The more I dug into this issue, the more I started to find.
As far back as 2007, stories such as these were found on
SGcafe Forums:
He first quoted me a price of $75 for the normal battery but
further persuaded me to buy a higher capacity battery with longer
battery life and comes with a warranty which we agreed at the price
of $105 with GST. In total, I paid $525 for my PSP. Later,
when I told my friends about this, they told me that I had been
conned as the standard pack of PSP does include the battery and
moreover, the so-called “high capacity” battery that I paid for was
actually the normal battery that was available in all PSP
package.
To which other members in the forum replied with:
S$525 for a PSP!? THAT’S DAYLIGHT ROBBERY!
As I did more research, I found out that tourists are more
often than not the innocent victims. Many on
TripAdvisor said the ”electronics sales people from hell”
were not from Sim Lim Square but also Lucky Plaza.
Here’s
an account from an Australian tourist this year:
Got ripped off when buying a Sony PSP. Shop was on the
basement level of Lucky Plaza. I managed to get the guy to accept
$165 SD for a PSP 2000, thought this was great.. He then said he
had the latest PSP 3000 but would have to pay an extra $70-$80SD
for it, on top of that he said we needed to have a modified chip
put in so that games purchased in Australia or elsewhere would be
compatible. I then found out from a great games store in the
new Orchard Plaza shopping centre that the PSPs or
Nintendo DS are compatible in any country and did not need any
type of modification chip.
In
another account from a Filipino tourist last year:
My dad bought what was supposed to be an SLR camera (in
Lucky Plaza)….Instead, the salesman sold him a camera
that was released back in 2006. It wasn’t even an SLR camera. He
assured him that it was a “100% SLR camera” but it turns out that
it was just a complicated-looking digital camera. More than that,
he overpriced it by S$600 dollars which is about US$400. It
was awful.
While one could argue that these tourists should have
done their homework first, I feel for those who are unable to
fight for justice.
Do you have any horror stories to share from either Sim Lim
Square or Lucky Plaza? Do you think CASE or the Tourism
Board should do more to protect both local and foreign
consumers alike?