Consumer Watch

Starting yesterday (1 Jul), the electricity tariff for households in the current quarter increased by 6.4% to 24.22 cents per kWh. This makes it the highest electricity tariffs in last 5 years since the fourth quarter of 2014, where it stood at 25.28 cents per kWh (‘Electricity tariff to rise 6.4% in July-September to highest in nearly 5 years‘). In …

On Friday (28 June), a concerned grandson named Jeryl Ng took to his Facebook to a share a “legal scam” case that sells a magical “electric chair” targeting seniors, including his “illiterate grandma”. He wrote this post after his grandma almost became a victim of this alleged medical scam, and wanted to raise awareness and warn other seniors before they …

Following its detection of unauthorised overseas transactions made via the Fevo Mastercard prepaid cards, electronic payment system provider EZ-Link has clarified on Fri (3 May) that no data was compromised in the process. EZ-Link, a subsidiary of the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and Mastercard Worldwide, added that the CEPAS cards were not affected. Responding to queries from The Straits Times, …

A 24-year-old man was arrested for his suspected involvement in a series of e-commerce scams after the Police acted upon everal reports from victims who were purportedly cheated by an online seller who was selling game consoles and mobile phones on Carousell, and renting rooms and cars on “Rent in Singapore” and Roomgo between December 2018 and March 2019. According …

Based on a survey released by Picodi, Singaporeans prefer to shop online using their desktops (62%) compared to their smartphones (35%). Despite the global blooming of mobile commerce, only 1 out 3 transactions was made with the use of a mobile device in 2018. On top of that, when Singaporeans do use their phone for shopping, the average order value …

According to the latest Worldwide Cost of Living Survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Singapore, Hong Kong and Paris have been ranked jointly as the world’s most expensive city to visit and live in. The biannual survey of 133 global cities, which was released today (19 Mar), compares more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services in …

Singapore Airlines (SIA) were quick to reassure passengers on Tuesday (16 Feb) that the camera embedded in some of its inflight entertainment systems have been ‘permanently disabled’. SIA added that they have no plans to develop any features using those cameras. They were responding to complaints on social media made by passengers who had spotted the cameras on SIA aircrafts …

After EZ-Link and Shopee screwed up the orders of the limited-edition tokidoki character EZ-Charms, customers resorted to directly exchange their items with each other on Facebook. On 7 February, EZ-Link teamed up with Shopee and launched two brand-new EZ-Charms in tokidoki characters – Donutella and Mermicornos. To get hold of these adorable charms, customers had to place their order on …

In a series of bad publicity, Singapore Post (SingPost) has again added a new complaint from a consumer for its horrible service. On 1 February, a local business owner named Daniel Goh lambasted SingPost for delivering a letter from a Government authority four months after the letter was assumed posted. Venting his complaint on his Facebook page, the businessman said …

A consumer got a rude shock when he found out that an item at one of NTUC FairPrice stores were wrongly tagged. Ho Chee Yi wrote to TOC to highlight this issue and said that he bought a packet of tomatoes which was supposed to cost S$1.29. However, the label on the packet showed China Fragrant Pear and the cost …