Singapore gadget store in hot soup after refunding customer $800 in coins

A gadget shop in a notoriously-shifty tech mall in Singapore gave a woman a rude shock when they dumped more than $800 in coins on her after she successfully secured the amount in refunds for a phone she was overcharged for. The woman, a Chinese national known as Miss Zhou, purchased an iPhone 6 Plus on Sept. 24 from the store for an initially-agreed-upon price of $1,280, but was told she had to top up $1,920 for “insurance”. After haggling, she eventually forked out $2,400 in total for the phone, but filed a complaint with Singapore’s Small Claims Tribunal the next day, which ruled she should receive the $800 in refunds.

Now I have 18kg of coins in a bag sitting on my sofa. I went to a bank, but its staff were not willing to change the coins to notes for me.

Miss Zhou, who received a bag of coins amounting to $800

She said she and her aunt tried to seek her refund from the store seven times over the month that followed the court’s ruling, but its staff repeatedly refused to hand the money over, until her eighth attempt, where she was handed the bag of Singapore-currency coins, in all denominations, including 5 and 10 cents. Miss Zhou claimed the shop assistants threw the bag on the floor and told her to count the coins there, taunting her and making fun of her as she did. She added that it took her almost three hours to count about $440 in coins after calling the police to the scene. They weren’t too helpful though, counting the incident as a dispute. A local consumer watchdog has since said it is looking into the case, the 14th such complaint against the store in question since July.

Odd News