The scourge of the unsmiling shopping survey taker kid

On November 13, 2006 · 16 Comments · In Living
Vivo Weekend
Flood­ing Dis­as­ter Sim­u­la­tor, Level 3, Vivo City

So this kid, who’s maybe 13 or 14, comes up to Naomi and me at Vivo City and mum­bles ‘can you do a shop­ping sur­vey for me?’

Since we have a bit of time before our movie, she gamely says yes, and pro­ceeds to try to fill out a form, watched very, very closely by the surly kid who brusquely directs her to com­plete the form, even though we know bet­ter than to give out our full details on these things. (Actu­ally, Naomi knows bet­ter while I don’t and I reg­u­larly give mar­keters the foot in the prover­bial door to try to sell us more things).

The amaz­ing thing was that through the course of obtain­ing infor­ma­tion about our shop­ping habits, not once did this kid smile or say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’.

Not even after I told him ‘say­ing please or thank you would be good you know?’

Vivo Weekend
Kids who mis­be­have will be
sus­pended indef­i­nitely

Maybe he thinks that the Champs Shop­pers voucher he tore off for us, con­tain­ing a chance to win sev­eral won­der­ful items such as a ‘branded watch’ (has any­one ever seen an unbranded one?), an MP4 player (going one up), com­pli­men­tary spa ses­sions at JA’ZZ SPA (owned by Apos­tro­phe Man and Associate’s), dis­count off din­ner at ORCHARD GOLD COAST SEAFOOD and hol­i­days in Perth, Dis­ney­land HK or Bangkok, would have made up for his lack of manners.

I’d have chucked the kid into the Flood­ing Dis­as­ter Sim­u­la­tor at level 3, if not for Naomi telling me that it isn’t a very nice thing to do to a kid, whether he’s rude or not.

If you’re one of those infer­nal mar­keters, please, next time, add an option for us to check off that reads “I hate being bugged by sur­vey tak­ers when shop­ping, espe­cially those who are rude and don’t smile”.

iTunes is play­ing an ille­gal copy of Voodoo Chile from the album “Great­est Hits” by Ste­vie Ray Vaughan and Dou­ble Trou­ble of which I have the orig­i­nal CD.

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  • Won­der­boi

    I’ve filled in that sur­vey before last month.

    Its a scam!

    Received a phonecall from them last week, con­grat­u­lat­ing me that I’ve won this and that.
    Lastly, the guy asked “do you own any credit card and what is your monthly income?”

    Imme­di­ately I know this must be some kind of MLM or worst, TIMESHARE!

    I asked for their com­pany name and they hes­i­tated before giv­ing me a brief reply, stat­ing; We’re in the trav­el­ing industry.

    Gotcha! I requested them for their EXACT COMPANY NAME and they finally state that they’re from duno wat Air Asia or Asia Travel coma­pany.
    (TIMESHARE!)

    Imme­di­ately, I told the guy off for wast­ing my time and that I’m not inter­ested in time­share scam! I even told him in return why is he work­ing for a scam­ming company.

    So read­ers beware of fill­ing in sur­vey forms at Vivo City!

  • Won­der­boi

    I’ve filled in that sur­vey before last month.

    Its a scam!

    Received a phonecall from them last week, con­grat­u­lat­ing me that I’ve won this and that.
    Lastly, the guy asked “do you own any credit card and what is your monthly income?”

    Imme­di­ately I know this must be some kind of MLM or worst, TIMESHARE!

    I asked for their com­pany name and they hes­i­tated before giv­ing me a brief reply, stat­ing; We’re in the trav­el­ing industry.

    Gotcha! I requested them for their EXACT COMPANY NAME and they finally state that they’re from duno wat Air Asia or Asia Travel coma­pany.
    (TIMESHARE!)

    Imme­di­ately, I told the guy off for wast­ing my time and that I’m not inter­ested in time­share scam! I even told him in return why is he work­ing for a scam­ming company.

    So read­ers beware of fill­ing in sur­vey forms at Vivo City!

  • http://miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    Oh shit!

  • http://miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    Oh shit!

  • http://karmadgeon.blogs.com Muffy Wong

    Once while home on sum­mer break from col­lege (and after gain­ing the Fresh­man 15) I had some bald­ing, short twit who was try­ing to sell spa pack­ages approached me and a friend in the mid­dle of Orchard Road. He greeted us with, “Har­low miss?! I know you wan’ to lose weight riigh? and you, miss, you wish you can get rid of your acne hor?”

    It was a true prac­tice of restraint.

  • http://karmadgeon.blogs.com Muffy Wong

    Once while home on sum­mer break from col­lege (and after gain­ing the Fresh­man 15) I had some bald­ing, short twit who was try­ing to sell spa pack­ages approached me and a friend in the mid­dle of Orchard Road. He greeted us with, “Har­low miss?! I know you wan’ to lose weight riigh? and you, miss, you wish you can get rid of your acne hor?”

    It was a true prac­tice of restraint.

  • http://chinalmind.spaces.live.com/ Chi­nAl­mond

    im eceived a phonecall from them just now…

  • http://chinalmind.spaces.live.com/ Chi­nAl­mond

    im eceived a phonecall from them just now…

  • Christina

    I’ve signed a con­tract in 1999 with Emperor Resorts Inter­na­tional (ERI) to pur­chase a hol­i­day time share pack­age that belongs to H.C. Asia Pacific Pty Ltd (Aus­tralia) (HCAP). After I received a lot of bad expe­ri­ence and feed­back about time share com­pa­nies, I decided to ter­mi­nate my con­tract (S$15,800) by not pay­ing the out­stand­ing bal­ance (S$9,350). In 2003, I’ve informed ERI that I want to ter­mi­nate my con­tract by for­feit­ing the sum (S$6,450) I’ve already paid to them. And since then I’ve not heard from them.

    Recently, I received a call from Axial Man­age­ment (Sin­ga­pore) who claims that they are asso­ci­ated with Great East­ern Trust & Asset Man­age­ment Co. Ltd (Lon­don). They are also act­ing under the instruc­tions of World Travel Orga­ni­za­tion to approach the mem­bers of ERI, to com­pen­sate the mem­bers. Their con­di­tion is — If I pay Axial a sum of S$17,800, World Travel Organ­i­sa­tion will com­pen­sate me S$20,000 three years later through Axial. Great East­ern Trust will also pay me through Axial a sum of about S$30,000 for uti­liz­ing my pack­age. Though this amount is guar­an­teed by Axial (in writ­ing), I feel that there’s no 100% guar­an­tee that Axial Man­age­ment will pay up three years later or even exist after 3 years.. My most wor­ry­ing con­cern is Axial Man­age­ment may be scam­ming peo­ple into pay­ing more money. There­fore I rejected Axial Management’s proposal.

    Very soon, about 3 days later, I received a final warn­ing let­ter from ERI ask­ing me to set­tle the bal­ance pay­ment within 7 days, oth­er­wise they will take legal action against me to recover the amount.

    I find it very puz­zling that ERI sud­denly issue me a final let­ter after 4 years, and espe­cially so just after I’ve rejected Axial’s offer. I sus­pect that both com­pa­nies are related to each other with Axial claim­ing they want to help ERI mem­bers get out of the con­tract by mak­ing the mem­bers pay more. And if mem­bers rejected Axial’s pro­posal, ERI will threaten to sue, thereby leav­ing the mem­ber no choice but to take up Axial’s offer.

    I hope this will pre­vent more peo­ple falling vic­tim into these scams.

  • Christina

    I’ve signed a con­tract in 1999 with Emperor Resorts Inter­na­tional (ERI) to pur­chase a hol­i­day time share pack­age that belongs to H.C. Asia Pacific Pty Ltd (Aus­tralia) (HCAP). After I received a lot of bad expe­ri­ence and feed­back about time share com­pa­nies, I decided to ter­mi­nate my con­tract (S$15,800) by not pay­ing the out­stand­ing bal­ance (S$9,350). In 2003, I’ve informed ERI that I want to ter­mi­nate my con­tract by for­feit­ing the sum (S$6,450) I’ve already paid to them. And since then I’ve not heard from them.

    Recently, I received a call from Axial Man­age­ment (Sin­ga­pore) who claims that they are asso­ci­ated with Great East­ern Trust & Asset Man­age­ment Co. Ltd (Lon­don). They are also act­ing under the instruc­tions of World Travel Orga­ni­za­tion to approach the mem­bers of ERI, to com­pen­sate the mem­bers. Their con­di­tion is — If I pay Axial a sum of S$17,800, World Travel Organ­i­sa­tion will com­pen­sate me S$20,000 three years later through Axial. Great East­ern Trust will also pay me through Axial a sum of about S$30,000 for uti­liz­ing my pack­age. Though this amount is guar­an­teed by Axial (in writ­ing), I feel that there’s no 100% guar­an­tee that Axial Man­age­ment will pay up three years later or even exist after 3 years.. My most wor­ry­ing con­cern is Axial Man­age­ment may be scam­ming peo­ple into pay­ing more money. There­fore I rejected Axial Management’s proposal.

    Very soon, about 3 days later, I received a final warn­ing let­ter from ERI ask­ing me to set­tle the bal­ance pay­ment within 7 days, oth­er­wise they will take legal action against me to recover the amount.

    I find it very puz­zling that ERI sud­denly issue me a final let­ter after 4 years, and espe­cially so just after I’ve rejected Axial’s offer. I sus­pect that both com­pa­nies are related to each other with Axial claim­ing they want to help ERI mem­bers get out of the con­tract by mak­ing the mem­bers pay more. And if mem­bers rejected Axial’s pro­posal, ERI will threaten to sue, thereby leav­ing the mem­ber no choice but to take up Axial’s offer.

    I hope this will pre­vent more peo­ple falling vic­tim into these scams.

  • http://miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    Me too.

  • http://miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    Me too.

  • Charles

    To those who signed with Axial/GETAM

    We found out that GETAM was reg­is­tered in Feb 07 but on GETAM web­site stated that it was founded in year 1992. Do a search & you won’t find any infor­ma­tion about GETAM from year 1992–2006. The rea­son is because http://www.greateasterntrust.co.uk is reg­is­tered under Axial Man­age­ment and this domain was reg­is­tered in 26 Feb 2007

    Ide­ally, one has to filed an agree­ment with the actual time­share com­pany in order to make it legal to loan or take over your mem­ber­ship. Look at the con­tract of your time­share. Or you can check with your time­share if such buy­back scheme exist & whether the mem­ber­ship still belongs to you

    You might be able to get some pay­out but unlikely will last through the 3rd year. Co, Ltd/Pte Ltd kind of com­pa­nies are very easy to shut down & they have very lim­ited lia­bil­ity. You don’t want to end up los­ing $$ and still stuck with a time­share contract!

    I am try­ing to work things out as a group so con­tact me if you are one of them or know some­one that has signed with Axial Mgt

    charles_lor@yahoo.com.sg

  • Charles

    To those who signed with Axial/GETAM

    We found out that GETAM was reg­is­tered in Feb 07 but on GETAM web­site stated that it was founded in year 1992. Do a search & you won’t find any infor­ma­tion about GETAM from year 1992–2006. The rea­son is because http://www.greateasterntrust.co.uk is reg­is­tered under Axial Man­age­ment and this domain was reg­is­tered in 26 Feb 2007

    Ide­ally, one has to filed an agree­ment with the actual time­share com­pany in order to make it legal to loan or take over your mem­ber­ship. Look at the con­tract of your time­share. Or you can check with your time­share if such buy­back scheme exist & whether the mem­ber­ship still belongs to you

    You might be able to get some pay­out but unlikely will last through the 3rd year. Co, Ltd/Pte Ltd kind of com­pa­nies are very easy to shut down & they have very lim­ited lia­bil­ity. You don’t want to end up los­ing $$ and still stuck with a time­share contract!

    I am try­ing to work things out as a group so con­tact me if you are one of them or know some­one that has signed with Axial Mgt

    charles_lor@yahoo.com.sg

  • Great East­ern Trust and Asset

    Check out this web­page from UK gov web­site and read what Getam nature of busi­ness is…:)

    http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/0ace31efe56d2ea9a38b176919183324/compdetails

  • Great East­ern Trust and Asset Man­age­ment true nature of business

    Check out this web­page from UK gov web­site and read what Getam nature of busi­ness is…:)

    http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/0ace31efe56d2ea9a38b176919183324/compdetails

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