11/13/2014

Unethical business practices are still legal


‘Mr Iswaran said that he agreed that the sales tactics employed (by rogue merchants) are unfair to buyers and that "we must not let such unethical practices tarnish Singapore's hard-earned reputation". He said that he was glad that many have spoken up against such behaviours, and that some have even come forward to help the victim, referring to a crowdfunding effort initiated by Mr Gabriel Kang to buy the Vietnamese tourist an iPhone 6.
 

However, Mr Iswaran went on to say that "some have gone too far", revealing that the police are looking into reports regarding the alleged cheating case as well as "a related report on harassment".
 

Mr Iswaran urged the people to "exercise restraint and do not take matters into your own hands". "Let due process take its course," he wrote.’
 

Above is copied from AsiaOne Singapore. 9 Nov 14.
 

So, is Iswaran going after the rogue merchants like Jover Chew or after netizen vigilantes who shamed him? Who is the rogue that the police would deal with and who should be protected? This Jover Chew seems to be very important or may have good connections that his acts are touted as legal and clever and instead of punishing him, the netizens are warned not to go too far.
 

Law Minister K. Shanmugam was reported by The Straits Times to have said that Chew's actions were "completely unacceptable", and that "bad conduct should be dealt with strictly". He said: "My own view is that there are laws which can deal with that kind of conduct. I know the police are looking into it, and I know AGC (Attorney General's Chambers) is working with the police."
 

This must be a very complicated case that the police and the law are scratching their heads on how to deal with it. It must have just happened after 50 years of independence, something new and no one knows how to handle it.
 

May I suggest try heckling. If it doesn’t work, try harassment. If it still doesn’t work, try public nuisance. I think the last one sure to work.
 

What do you think? Can or not?

Kopi Level - Green

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

/// May I suggest try heckling. If it doesn’t work, try harassment. If it still doesn’t work, try public nuisance. I think the last one sure to work.
What do you think? Can or not? ///

I think I will try voting wisely.
We've tried everything else and failed.
Might as well try changing the government.
Nothing to lose.

Anonymous said...


JUSTICE! JUSTICE! JUSTICE!

I was very very surprised when I
first heard about these cases
actually took place in Singapore.

How can Singapore, the shopping
paradise of the world allows such
cases?

Justice MUST be done!



Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Last time I checked, being "unethical" is still perfectly legal.

Caveat emptor. You don't like the shop owner's ethics? Then don't fucking buy!

One more time, for good luck: Caveat Emptor. i.e. as a BUYER you better have yourradar and all your sensors fully operational. It is up to ==>> YOU <<== to be skeptical.

Anonymous said...

Yes,yes,yes, cheating is ok. Just call yourself a loser when you got cheated. This is the new normal. Everyone is cheating everyone else.

Anonymous said...

Mr Iswaran urged the people to "exercise restraint....

Sure. Tempted though they may be, 60% will however exercise restraint by not voting for opposition next election.

Anonymous said...

The thing is, the tourist who gets done over this time has an Asian face.
Many years ago some Westerns (read white tourists) too got hard done by these so-called rouge operators, the then STPB swiftly paid for their air passage back to Sin city for their day in court for restitution.
Double standards has always been the rule in these parts.

Anonymous said...

Unethical practices?

When the top practice the art of being unethical, how can the lower portion be ethical?

Is sidelining opposition wards for HDB upgrading ethical? Is insisting that the elected opposition MPs of an opposition ward having to obtain permission from an unelected PAP in that ward counted as ethical?

You tell me lah!

You tell me lah!

Anonymous said...

I agree that this must be a complicated case for the police to deal with and, like everything else, we must give them plenty of time.

After all, when things go wrong in red dot, they happen only once in 50 years, a favourite excuse made famous by non other than Mr. Iswaran himself.

Give the man and the police a break!

Anonymous said...

Hmmm.. so Jover Chew and others of his ilk have not gone "too far" .. tats y nothing was done for so many years to stop them.. if this case has not received the publicity it had ... its probably not "too far" ...

Anonymous said...

Netizens are very bad. If they keep quiet everything will be forgotten and everyone very happy except the Vietnamese.
Now everyone face so red and so many questions to answer and so much work to do.

Anonymous said...

Jover, that's an unfortunate name. Wonder if was given by his own parents.

b said...

So long as the gov that the majority of the voters voted in say can means can lah. It is never up to the normal folks here to say can or cannot. In this democratic system, once the gov is voted in, there is no say for the people.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

@1155 and the rest of you who don't "get it":

W.C. Fields: YOU CAN'T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN.

Every successful "con" or "scam" depends not just on the "skill of the con-artist, but in a large part on the dishonesty/ wishful thinking/ willful denial of reality of the victim.

For e.g.: Take Bernie Madoff's famous scheme: For him to so successfully con so many people out of so much money, those victims had to (themselves) think and act DISHONESTLY.

The so-called "victims" had to convince THEMSELVES that they could actually make huge amounts of money by buying into Madoff's scheme.

What's more, Madoff played hard-to-get, making the marks (aka "suckers") even MORE EAGER to "invest" their hard earned cash with him.

The greedier the investors became, the more aloof Madoff appeared to be. Instead of giving up and going elsewhere to invest, these greedy suckers became even greedier...to the point where they were BEGGING Madoff to take their money.

People go to Sim Lim to try to get "a better deal". They think by shopping there, they can get the shop owner to "sacrifice" for a much lower selling price...in other words, the greedy / stingy suckers have no problem with screwing the shop owner on price.

...and so they kena conned.

You can't cheat an honest man. :-)

Anonymous said...

In Sin, not ALL LEGAL ACTS, AS SANCTIONED AND CONDONED BY LAWS, ARE ETHICAL AND PROPER.

Anonymous said...

When at first you don't succeed - CHEAT.
Everything is officiously rigged in Sin City.
No need to be alarmed.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Matilah, please stop this silly comment. You can't cheat an honest man. :-)

A whole nation is being cheated and you keep coming back with this stupid comment.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

@ "I-still-don't-get-it-duhhh!" redbean:

>> A whole nation is being cheated and you keep coming back with this stupid comment.


Exactly. Take the CPF for e.g. I have been calling it a tax cum ponzi scheme since the 1980's resulting in:

1. people calling me all sorts of colourful names
2. people casting aspersions on my level of intelligence, or lack thereof
3. people making twisted references to my mother's genitals, which BTW have nothing to do with the cpf scam.

Singaporeans who believe that cpf is "their money" are wilfully DELUSIONAL. Therefore they are the "marks" or the "chumps"-- i.e. no critical thinking, no skepticism, no caveat emptor.

So when they finally kena pluck, they rush off to Hong Lim in a display of United Victimhood on a Saturday afternoon and cry mother-father:

"Oh poor me! Oh what tragedy! The garmen cheat my money! Now I cannot go fucky sucky in karaoke, Geylang and Bintang"...kau peh kau bu..."How can I be a dirty old man without money...so...GIMME BACK MY CPF LAH!!! Nee nah bey!!!

Please lah redbean... Consider a gorgeous China babe flashing her pussy, ass and tetek to an uncle. The uncle draws the conclusion that this sexy fox is really "into him". So he goes out to Orchard Road visits Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Tiffany's buying trinkets and attempts to "seduce" the girl, and hopes he gets to fuck her tight chi bye for as long as his Viagra can tahan.

Then the girl just takes the stuff and pisses off.

Now, who is the dishonest one: the girl, or the uncle?

To make a con work, it takes 2 parties lah.

Fuck you all of you delusional cunts,you are never going to get your CPF, because it is NOT yours. Both you and the govt are in the same con, but it's a zero-sum game! :-))

b said...

" You can't cheat an honest man"

- is a myth.

Anonymous said...

You can always bully the weak

and

cheat the ignorant.

Anonymous said...

We are all victims of unethical business practices.

1. Crude oil prices have gone down more than hundred percent from about $160.00 per barrel to less than $70.00 per barrel. This drop is not reflected in PUB bills and in petrol kiosks charges. Why are the cartels and profitiers keeping so quiet.

2. Money collected from COEs and ERPs is plain outright extortion money from defenseless citizens. COEs and ERPs have a very great detrimental impact on the people's livelihood.

3.In the medical profession doctors and surgeons are behaving like hounds and hyenas. They will psycho patients for unnecessary operations just to collect huge mongous fees.

In the Sin City those in power and high position have lost their ethics and conscience totally.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

@ 936

>> We are all victims of unethical business practices.


Yes we are. However "unethical" does not necessarily mean "cheating" -- let's be clear on this.

What you've described are govt monopolies, or govt created/ controlled cartels. where almost all MARKET COMPETITION is eliminated. They are behaving in EXACTLY the ways that we would expect. This is NORMAL behaviour.

MARKET COMPETITION is vital to the "self-policing" of businesses conducting themselves in the commercial space. For e.g.: if a business treats its customers poorly, then the customers have the choice to dump the relationship and go to the competition.