The Ol' Bait n' Switch

This afternooon included another trip down to Orchard Road, the main shopping district in Singapore. It consists of many large malls all the way down the street, with several street vendors outside and other little foodstalls and stuff like that.

I was in the market for a digital camera. I had heard the best places to go were either Simlim Square or Orchard Road. Simlim Square is a big boxy building with four floors that sells only electronics, only from vendors (no brand name stores). All of the vendors basically have the same goods in their shops, but their prices vary wildly depending on if they think that a) you are a tourist, or b) you don't know what kind of price range electronics cost.

But anyway, in one of the malls along Orchard Road is a section that is basically a mini-Simlim Square.

So I was checking for the Canon Powershot A510 (found here). I was first quoted $340S, but the next place I went to quoted $265.

From FutureShop, with the conversion to Sing dollars, it is about $350S. I should have keyed in then that $265S was too good to be true, but I didn't. So we agreed on the price (including a full international warranty), and the guy "called the shop" to deliver the camera in the next five minutes. This is when I got a bit suspicious, but I stuck around.

At this point in time one of the shop guys told me that Canon actually makes really bad cameras and there are better cameras out there for a similar price. I told him no thanks, I'll just take the Canon, but he proceeded to try to sell me what I knew were inferior cameras, and he also tried to sell me memory cards at extremely inflated prices. I must have told him 10 times that I wanted the A510 and nothing else. "But oh, I'm just doing my job, trying to make the customer happy".

Anyway after waiting for 10 minutes it turns out that, surprisingly, the camera was out of stock. Especially after the fact, it's surprising how transparent the shop was. In the end, the only thing I lost was 10 minutes, but it wasn't a pleasant experience.

To their credit, I think most of the electronics shopkeepers are on the level. Just not all of them. I ran into a similar problem when making a purchase off eBay.

But, just as eBay has accountability (positive, neutral or negative feedback), so does Singapore, in a way. It is possible to report shady shopkeepers to the main Singaporean newspaper, the Strait Times, and apparently this is what shopkeepers fear most.

So I am going to return to the store to write down its name and address, and file a complaint to the newspaper, to try to stop this kind of thing. I talked to another shopkeeper about it, and he was well aware of this kind of thing.

But in the end, I still don't have a camera. I heard the university has some sort of sale in mid-August, so I'll try to check that out, but if anyone has any other ideas for getting one (including shipment to Singapore), I'm open to suggestions.

Phew!! Hope you enjoyed the read!

(C)