Hi Mr. Tan,
Did you notice the series of letters to ST Forum on the lifetime membership of a fitness club. Some people paid thousands to get the lifetime membership, to have it revoked later (presumably without refunds) because they forgot to pay the annual admin fees of a few dollars. The fitness club makes it not so easy to pay the fees (eg. no giro payment).
I wonder if this can be classified as a scam. But it definitely highlight another issue of prepaying for a product/service.
REPLY
I think that this is an unfair contract term. There is a law against such unfair contracts. I believe that this law is being handled, in some ways, by the Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE).
Did you notice the series of letters to ST Forum on the lifetime membership of a fitness club. Some people paid thousands to get the lifetime membership, to have it revoked later (presumably without refunds) because they forgot to pay the annual admin fees of a few dollars. The fitness club makes it not so easy to pay the fees (eg. no giro payment).
I wonder if this can be classified as a scam. But it definitely highlight another issue of prepaying for a product/service.
REPLY
I think that this is an unfair contract term. There is a law against such unfair contracts. I believe that this law is being handled, in some ways, by the Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE).
6 comments:
Dear all
Please stop and think about this for a minute.
What happens to your value as a customer - AFTER you pay for a "lifetime" membership?
Your potential revenue stream is now only $8/year.
But you now become a cost center to the business for the rest of your lifetime.
It is now in the business best interest (profit maximization) to lose you as a customer.
Why foreign businesses like to make suckers out of Singaporeans.
Are they pushing boundaries, testing how far our dida apa Gov could tolerate such practices, or to what limit they are allowed to milk such easy money, or simply testing how daft we could be.
So many sharks cruising around, both local and foreign, even a son of a highly respected, but deceased, Judge, also could not resist getting into the act, selfishly telling his spa clients he has to sacrifice them to save his other businesses.
Told you already, our society is degrading, is it a sign of Singapore reaching its pinnacle, and starting to go downhill.
Like Roman Emperor fiddling his harp while the whole of Rome was burning.
Better prepare and follow the political Elites, making preparations to chabo.
But must first make as much dough at all costs, even without integrity and morals. No money, no talk, that's what the Elites are teaching us.
Never pay for a package deal! When the money is in your pocket, you are most powerful in negotiations as you have the levarage in your wallet. Once you lose that leverage, you are a liability to the business, so they are quite happy to lose you as a customer so the centre remains most attractive to new customers. Once you have transferred your money, you are like a sugarcane stem all rolled and dried, of no use to them anymore. Come to think of it, isn't what retirees are like to our government? The new young immigrants are the new sugarcane while the retirees are the spent ones.
Where go such thing as life time?Two yr down the road, the owner may close the shop and open another new one
I’m always puzzled by what our MPs do all day. Why can’t simple laws be passed to redress obvious unfair trade practices? Why have a government when a government cannot protect its people?
Can't blame the companies that do that. They learn from DBS handling of Singaporean investors when Lehman collapsed.
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