Dishonest camera salesmen

Before I went to Orchard Road in Singapore, I was advised by a regular visitor there to be very careful when dealing with salesmen in the streetshops or in the numerous shopping complexes along the road. The advise I got was that if I was not sure about the price of say a video camera, always check with Harvey Norman, or Best Denki, or Robinson.

I was keen to buy one of those 3CCD videocams. So, when in Orchard Road, I dropped by in the big department store called Takeshimaya (or something like that) and proceeded to the top floor where a section called Best Denki has a wide range of electronic goods including video cameras. The good thing about the store was that the prices of all the goods there were clearly displayed for the customers to see. There were goods that were tagged with special offers with good discounts while most were priced with no extra offers.

After spending some 30 mins in the store, I memorised the price of one video camera that I liked and checked again with one salesgirl who said the prices of the goods are fixed. Fair enough.

Not so however with the shops in the shopping complex (I think its the Plaza Singapura) opposite the big department store. As I was browsing at the innumerable electronic goods on display, there were no price tags that were intelligible to the customers. All the goods were tagged with coded prices known only to the salesmen.

As I passed one shop I was ushered in by a salesman to view his wares. After some moment of looking at the various cameras on display, I asked him about the particular 3CCD camera on the shelf. He took it to show me and started his salestalk about the virtues of the camera. After listening patiently to his blabbering, I asked him the most important question - the price of the camera . He responded first by taking out a black folder, which I presumed contained the price list of his goods and a calculator. After about 15 seconds, he responded by pricing the item about $1,000 above the price that I had known.

Expecting me to bargain down to $500 less than his offer price , I offerred him about $300 less than my price. Straight away he offended me by saying that at that price he would rather buy the item from me rather than he sell it to me.

Rather than persuading me to offer at the price that I had hoped, he lowered it by another $100 and stuck to it. He had hoped that perhaps I would buy the camera at another $100 less and he would reluctantly part with it and then grumbled about selling it at no or little profit just to make me feel good at such a "bargain price". As I did not wish to be taken for a ride even if he had offerred the camera at my price, I would rather take my business elsewhere.

Without any hesitation, I proceeded to the big department store and bought my video camera without even thinking about the 2% surcharge on my credit card. So much for Plaza Singapura .