Tan Kin Lian / Columnist
In recent years, it seems that cheating is allowed. You only need to say “caveat emptor” or “registered” with the XYZ authority.
What is cheating?
According to Wikipedia, “Cheating is an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one’s own interest, and often at the expense of others. Cheating implies the breaking of rules.”
Credit linked notes
Recently, more than 10,000 ordinary folks were misled into investing in credit linked notes. They were told that the notes were as safe as fixed deposits.
The prospectus has a warning “you could lose part or all of your savings on a credit event”. However, the investors were advised by the trusted advisers to ignore this warning as the likelihood of a credit event is very remote.
They were also told that the notes were approved by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Actually, the prospectus said that notes were “registered” with MAS, but the difference between “registered” and “approved” were not clearly explained to them.
It was subsequently found that the nature and risks of the credit linked notes were quite different from what the investors were led to believe. Many people lost their lifetime savings. The total loss was more than $500 million.
SMS premium services
Two months ago, I participated in a free online survey and provided my mobile phone number.
Later, I received regular SMS messages asking me to participate in a contest. If I were careless and reply to the SMS, it would cost me $4 for each contest entry. I had no clue about the prize and chance of winning the contest. I suspected that the payout ratio would be very low, and that could get much better odds by betting on 4D.
After receiving more than 20 SMS messages and avoiding them with great care, I complained to my telephone operator. They “obliged” me by asking the service provider to remove my number from their list. They politely replied that they were not responsible for the service. I do not accept this argument as they probably take a big cut from collecting the monthly fee.
Consumer Association
Recently, it was reported that the Consumer Association (CASE) has received several dozen complaints from their customers who were billed $4 for each premium SMS messages received on their mobile phone. Their only mistake was to “subscribe” and “agree” to the first message. They received more than a dozen of unwanted SMS messages each month and were billed over $50.
I suspect that the number of affected customers is several ten fold of the number of complaints, as the number that complained is the tip of the iceberg.
The executive director of CASE was reported to have said that the service provider met the advertising standards and that they are acting within the law.
Is this a correct way to look at this matter? Is $4 a fair value for the SMS message? Suppose the service operator charges $40 or $400 per SMS message, would they still be operating within the law?
CASE is supposed to have a special responsibility in administering the Fair Trading Act. Surely, this type of behaviour by the premium service provider must have contravened some aspects of fair trading? Can we use our common sense of what is right and fair?
Caveat Emptor
Some regulators say that they are not competent to decide on what products or services are good, bad, fair or unfair for consumers. The consumers should “open their eyes” and make an informed decision.
I disagree with this approach. It is the role of regulators to regulate. It is the role of the government to govern.
The people should expect the government to enforce certain standard of conduct in society. They should expect water to be clean, medicines to be safe, criminals are not free to roam the street and businesses do not cheat customers.
I am glad that this caveat emptor approach has not yet been applied in the health sector. I dread the day when toxic products are allowed to be sold freely and the consumer is expected to take personal care in checking the safety of medicines.
Regulation
How can the regulator decide on the suitability of credit linked notes to be sold to the ordinary folks?
The answer is “asks the expert”. If the regulator appoints a few independent experts to give an opinion about the credit linked notes before they are “registered” to be sold, the answer would be quite obvious. The experts would not be able to understand the product to give it a clean bill of health.
How does the regulator decide on the suitability of the SMS premium services that were being pushed to the customers?
If the service is to be pushed to a large number of consumers, the regulator can check with a representative sample of consumers if the service is useful and fair. Alternatively, the regulator can act and take appropriate action when there is a high rate of complaint about the service. The regulator cannot say, “this is not my duty”.
Unfair advantage
Cheating is defined as taking an unfair advantage, usually in one’s own interest, and often at the expense of others.
The creator of the product and service has better knowledge than the ordinary consumer that is being sold on the product. They should be expected to uphold a standard of fair dealing, and not allowed to take unfair advantage at the expense of the consumer.
If the provider of the product or service takes an unfair advantage, they should be investigated for the offence of cheating. The offence could be misrepresentation, mis-selling or over-charging. The offenders cannot be allowed to get away under the concept of “caveat emptor” or “let the buyer beware”.
Conclusion
We have to return to the old values of honesty. We should expect business to be conducted on ethical standards, so that customers can trust the business to be fair and ethical. We have to stop cheating.
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Think about this: a monthly plan for a mobile phone may be, say, $ 120. The subscriber misses his payment. The telco then charges $20 penalty fee, plus another $20 for reconnecting the line. That’s $40 — 33 percent of the total monthly plan! Telcos should be barred from imposing such “behaviourial management” policies. Afterall, commercial businesses don’t practice such terms and penalty clauses are illegal. Why are telcos so special? Because they’re Temasek-owned?
Similar to many private school who were approved by MOE and still closed down leaving many students stranded eventually. If CASE has no teeth and NTUC cannot bite, than what is the point of setting up so many associations to con innocent people and still need us to pay a fee for it.
Seems like greed knows no boundaries. Only when loose money then start to complain.
101) Tinker on December 23rd, 2008 9.42 am Think about this: a monthly plan for a mobile phone may be, say, $ 120. The subscriber misses his payment. The telco then charges $20 penalty fee, plus another $20 for reconnecting the line. That’s $40 — 33 percent of the total monthly plan! Telcos should be barred from imposing such “behaviourial management” policies. Afterall, commercial businesses don’t practice such terms and penalty clauses are illegal. Why are telcos so special? Because they’re Temasek-owned?
Another thing to comment here, about StarCable TV, a monthly plan for a sports football channel may be abt $30 but before you can subscribe to this channel, you have to subscribe to another so called basic plan for abt another $20+ first and on top of that, you also have to pay for the monthly rental of $8.50 that stupid control box to get access to the channel. Why? I don’t understand and I believe many people also don’t understand the logic here, why do I have to pay for the monthly rental of the 4 wheels when I have already paid for the leasing of the car?
Cheating is fast becoming a way of life in SinKapore. Getting rich on fast track seemed to be the way forward for individual and company. If anybody suffer on the way, just too bad. THe gahmant had set an example by paying themselves what they want so why should private company not join in. Rule of law had long ceased to exist in our country. I give up my mobile in desperation as that was the fastest way of stopping all these day light robbery as I was about to loose my job.
The level of honesty and integrity in our country had truly disappeared over the last 10 years. It is a society where the strong and powerful take all. It seem that if one can’t join them, why not just cheat and make lot of money. My personal experience had shown me that our country had lost its moral compass. We are storing more problems for the future and when the rest of world come to view us as a bunch of crook and dishonest people, we shall see many foreigners will avoid visiting SinKapore on their holiday. Busineses will move out as well then we will realise that cheating and dishonest come with a penalty that we SinKaporean had to carry with us for a long time. The simple answer is use our vote wisely come the next GE and let a new gahment in to clean up all these mass, thank to our PAP leaders. They are just looking after number one. It is even better if LKY could see the results of all greed before he goes to meet his maker. Don’t forget, he had said he will come back to sort things out if anything goes wrong. I would love to be there to see it with my own eye. If there is a almighty up in haven, I just hoped that He hads not joined the PAP as well.
great singaporean
Cheating is legitimized when PAPies themselves started dipping their hands into the National till, to pay themselves exceedingly handsome and indecent salaries without full disclosures to the nation. Their monthly salaries, their allowances, their pensions and their medical benefits and personal protection services rendered to top-dog leaders, still continue to be revealed and send heart shocks to all of us. If the rot had started at the top, we should expect all strata of society will imitate and follow suit. Look at the powerful people who held the world reigns and now exposed – the latest being Murdock of the Great NEWS Corp Media mogul. What does that say about our own government who also controls the media with an iron fist and had use it continuously for its own purpose. Learn from the Murdock fiasco? Trust who now? At least UK and USA still have the national cultural, social, traditional and spiritual ballast or Capital to fight it. What have we? Do we have these insurances or are we on the way to hell? Watch that these PAPies do not run away with our national reserves. They already removed the death duties to benefit themselves, Mrs. LKY and Mr LKY, not to be taxed at death?????????????