The obligatory annual fee waiver

I tried calling my UOB visa signatures hotline last week becos in my latest bill statement, they had automatically waived off half of my annual card fee, which meant they were also charging the other 50% of the annual fee = $100. However by following the voice prompts (“to speak to our officers on fees and charges, plse press 1”), I never got to speak to the customer service officer. Instead, I was asked to key in my contact number for which the customer service officer would contact me within a week (one week? My expectation is 3 days!) So after a few days, I got impatient, and called the hotline again. This time, I pressed 2 (“to speak to our officers on other enquries”), and was told the lines are busy, I could opt for self-help or hold the line. I chose to hold, and was connected almost immediately. (Were the hotlines really busy or was I just lucky?) The customer service officer checked my account and said that the remaining $100 had been waived off as well a few days ago and it would be reflected in next month’s statement. Well, that was certainly efficient. Has the company automated the waiver of annual fees thru phone prompts? Is it due to high volume of such requests? Why not just waive the fees directly in the first place so that the fee waiver step is eliminated? Better still, dun charge annual fees. Must consumers go the ‘extra mile’ to get the fee waiver? Is the bank trying to sneak in annual fees on unsuspecting customers who will obediently pay the annual fee? Are there any non-discerning consumers who do that?

Company website matters!

Been searching around the net for websites of companies who can do corporate video production. Since it’s a video production, the ‘feel’ of the website makes or breaks my decision making in shortlisting them. Those that are slick , comprehensive, market themselves well rank high on my list. Basic info is acceptable as well. Unfortunately , some companies dun seem to realize the importance of their website in portraying the company’s image.

One company’s website was really slow… processing… processing… is that page going to load or not?! Forget it, I’m not waiting..

Another company’s website was ‘screwed’ up. Click on ‘client list’.. new browser launches and opens up to blank page. What, u have no client?

Another company had a ‘dated’ looking website. Outdated design and lackluster colours … will my corporate video turn out this way too? Is the company still in business?

Another company’s site was too ‘avant-garde’ for me to navigate through. Catch no ball… dun even know how to navigate ur website.. how to understand your video?


Isit better to do a proper job or don’t have a website at all?

Delayed and delayed , is this what to expect of NTUC Income?

Wanted to get NTUC Income medishield for my mum. Here’s the timeline:

4 Aug – Submitted online enquiry form thru income.com.sg. Received immediate Auto Response that I would be contacted within one working day.

Wait… wait…

7 Aug – Still no response. Replied to their email to ask why no response. Soon after, a customer service officer called me. She claimed that she did call me that day but I told her I was busy and to call back another time. I have absolutely no recollection of that. And even if I did, why was she taking so long to call me back? She’s still at fault. Why try to sound like its my fault and she’s being gracious about it by saying ‘it’s ok, nevermind.’ That aside, she took down my mailing address and promised the form would be mailed out today. I can expect to receive the letter within 2 working days.

Wait… wait…

14 Aug – One week! I cannot believe our snail mail is this speed. I had to write back to them to ask why is my form not here yet?!!! Their response and apology came within the same day. Promising to ‘expedite’.

Wait… wait…

19 Aug - I received a call from the same customer service officer and after noting that I have yet to receive the form, she emailed it to me instead.

20 Aug - I finally received the form through snail mail as well.

Was the form sitting in their in-tray waiting to be mailed or did Singpost take such a long time? If they need so long to send me a form, can you imagine how much longer it would take to process your claims?

Grouchy CHEERS

I bought a springroll from shop A and walked off. The springroll tasted bland, I should have added chilli sauce. Just nice, there was a Cheers outlet ahead. We went in and bought drinks. While my partner was paying the cashier, I helped myself to the chilli sauce. After the payment was settled, the cashier came over to ask if I had taken food from the hot food counter (where the chilli sauce was). She thought I could have taken food without paying. I replied No, I used the chilli sauce. She then told me off for not ‘asking first’. Come on, its only Chilli sauce. Why do we have to ask you? And so what if we din ask? Did we deserved to be ‘told off’ for something so minor?

Unacceptable Civil Service Standards

I haven been updating this blog, cos I thought I have run out of things to post with regards to bad service and screwed up processes. But I was wrong. Nothing is perfect, so again, I encountered ‘blood vomitting’ stuff.

My 30th birthday is just around the corner and I received a notification slip from SIR/ICA to re-register for my NRIC. Two problems:

1) We can re-register by post, over the counter or through the internet. However, for update by post, there was no return envelope. Very stingy indeed, and makes things inconvenient for the end-user. Obviously, as a youth (we are youths until age 35), they know we are busy people and want to encourage us to go online to submit. Still… no excuses for purposely inconveniencing us.

2) There was no deadline given. So by when do I have to re-register? The notification slip says “Identity Card (IC) Re-registration is required for all Singapore IC holders who have attained 30 years of age on and after 1 Jan 2002 and who have not been issued with a replacement IC within the last 10 years before reaching the age of 30.” Ya.. ok, I understand I have to re-register.. but BY WHEN? I dun want to unknowingly miss the deadline… or is it my English not ‘powderful’ enough that I missed the deadline as ‘specified’ in that chunk of words?

3) Tried calling their hotline.. unfortunately, after pressing numerous options and finally the ‘press O to speak to our operator’.. I was told they were experiencing high call volume, since I din want to wait, I dropped them an email instead.

4) After sending email to them, I received the Auto Reply “We have received your email. Our officer will reply to your email within 5 working days”. FIVE?!! You think this is by post ah? Email still need 5 days to respond! Seriously F*up. Becos by the end of 5 days, my 30th birthday would be over and I may have missed the deadline unknowingly…

updte 30 Apr 08: an enquiry email sent to Singhealth group via their website took one month for them to respond.. freaking slow. As good as throwing a stone into the sea when I submitted that enquiry form.

So ya.. Civil Service has gone a long way to improve, and because of their improvements, our expectations have been raised and hence such ‘small’ issues become glaringly unacceptable.

Process for who?

To be truly customer oriented, companies need to look through every step of their processes and make sure that it is convenient to the customer. Sometimes companies forget and do things in a way that makes things easy for them, but is a great waste of time to customers who have to go the extra step. What an irony, instead of companies going the extra mile for customers, customers are penalized to ‘go the extra step’..

This company I deal with, specializes in providing courses related to service, like telephone skills for customer, how to write winning replies etc.. But the silly thing is, their admin sucks. Aside from wrongly billing me, their invoice comes in a very reader-unfriendly way. We got them to organize a number of courses for us to send our staff for training. When they bill us, the item they bill for is in a code that only they can understand, think ‘VA24536582’ - $7000.
Huh?
We then have to waste time to call them and note down exactly what this code means. And unsurprisingly, they have proven themselves to be not exactly customer oriented by not acting on our feedback of their un-readable invoice. Fine, we’ll sit on the payment.

A Bad Sale

Last weekend I was at Suntec City. Saw that there was a Muji sale in one of the events room. Went to check it out. Items after discount were still quite pricey. ($18 - $49 for clothes items). Why I say the sale is lousy – 1) No fitting rooms . It’s not as if their clothes were going at $5 / $8 , so they should let people try first before buying. 2) Without fitting rooms, how were people supposed to try on the clothes? Via an extremely narrow full length mirror – the one and only mirror. Totally frustrating, 3-4 gals were crowding around trying to get a view in the mirror. How inconsiderate of the organizers. 3) Muji is known for their good quality stuff. But I found that many of the knit wear felt scratchy.
Needless to say, I din get anything and also dissuaded my sister-in-law from buying.

Useless Plastics

Over the weekend, when I was shopping, I could barely use my credit card. I normally try to pay by credit card for purchases above $10. However, when my purchase amt was below $20, the retailer’s minimum payment for credit card was above $20. When I bought above $20, the retailer accepted credit card payment above $30. And when I bought $40 worth of goods, the retailer lagi better (NTUC), they accepted only 2 types of credit card – the NTUC OCBC credit cards. So out of the 6 purchases I made over the weekend, only 2 merchants accepted my credit card – Metro and café cartel.
Cash is king.

The inconsiderate bus passenger

Of the 2 buses I take to office from home, I noticed that passengers like to sit on the outside leaving the window seat empty. This is pretty inconsiderate because 1) the bus gets filled pretty fast, and people will have to squeeze into the inside seat, 2) those who sit outside are not alighting that soon, so again, it troubles other passengers to squeeze into the window seat.

Still, the ultimate in inconsideration came from this PRC passenger I bumped into recently. On this day, I boarded the bus (from office) and there were quite a few passengers who again occupied the outer seat, leaving the inner one empty. I march defiantly to the first lady and indicated I wanted to sit inside. Man, what she did made me puke blood.

I noticed that she placed her small bag of small oranges in the empty seat beside her. What?! Your oranges paid bus fare that they deserved a seat?
Never mind, she very very reluctantly and very slowly and carefully took her bag of oranges (Hello, those are oranges, not EGGS!!) away, and again at snail speed, shifted the paper bag below her, and barely moved her legs out for me to squeeze in. By then everyone was stuck behind me becos they were waiting for me to move into the seat then they can move to the back of the bus. Meanwhile, I GLARE and STARE at her with a very pissed off face, which unfortunately, all other passengers behind her can see, but she did not notice becos she did not look at my face at all. So anyway, since she gave me very little space to move in, I did not try to be polite either. I pushed my way in, pressing hard against her legs. Stupid woman!

Once Too Many

I am a stickler for timing, and I usually try my best to be on time. As such, one of the things that gets me pretty pissed is people who come late. If they are sincerely and genuinely apologetic about it, of course I will forgive them and be nice about it and feel less upset about their delay. If they have a very valid reason (caught in traffic jam), I also am understanding about it. So, it’s not that difficult to pacify me if you know u will be late rite? How late is considered late? I give 5 – 10mins grace. Anything more is LATE. Unfortunately, I realized that in being punctual, I am actually showing faith in the people I am meeting – that they will be on time. Regrettably, people I usually meet are close friends (since they are good friends, so we are more likely to meet up often). And very sadly, I always stupidly turn up on time to receive the ‘I will be late, you all go ahead first without me’ sms. It’s gotten to the point of 99.9999% predictability, and yet I refused to be late, and always turn up at the stipulated time. And even more unbearably, I tolerate this late behaviour of my good friends because they are my good friends and I dun want to scream at them. (If it’s my hubby, I would scream at him). And because I dun exhibit visible upset at their late behaviour, it seems to have gotten to the point of ‘it’s ok to be late’ and hence no apology needed. Just the usual ‘you all go ahead first’. How not to vomit blood when in the group of frens you are meeting, they all tell you ‘to go ahead first’ thinking the rest will be there on time (there are others who are punctual and who will then buffer your lateness). But if ur group is as small as 3 people? 2 people tell u that, what does the equation come to? One day I must reply them ‘Yes, I will go ahead first with me, myself and I.’

Technology at the Speed of Snail Mail

I got my Safra card recently – the spouse version. Discovered that I can book online for my $8 weekend GV movie tickets. How convenient. So I went online. As this was my first time logging in, I had to do the usual registration , fill in details, give them my email, and then a password would be sent to my email. That was Saturday night, I checked and checked my email, but nothing came in. I tried the ‘Forgot password’ button, hoping they will send the passwd to my acct, also no such luck. I began to get frustrated. How was I supposed to login without my password? I needed to buy tickets for a show on Sunday as it would be screened at GV Vivo where seats sell fast unless I buy 3 hours in advance. Still, no luck after 2 hours. Next morning I check, the password email still have not arrive. By then, I gave up and went earlier to Vivo to get the tickets. After that, I vaguely toyed with the idea of calling Safra for technical help on my password issue. But was too busy to do so. Til this morning (Tues), I checked my email, lo behold! The password email had come in, together with the reminders (those which I clicked ‘Forgot password’). My gosh, it takes their system 3 days to process a simple registration?
Faintz

How Protected Are You? II

I thought I probably have covered all my bases in buying insurance:
Life insurance – checked
Critical illness – checked
Savings insurance – checked
Accident insurance – checked
But not being the professional, it turned out that I overlooked some minor aspects. Basically, think of all the different ways we can die and whether we are covered:
From accident – yes
From critical illness – yes
From non-critical illness – ? hmmm.. what if the death was not due to the normal cancers etc that were defined as ‘critical illness’ in the policy? For instance, dengue fever…
Went to check on my critical illness term policy. Thank goodness it covers death due to all causes as well.

Geek Speak

From the Straits Times (Urban Section), 17 May 2007:

GEEK SPEAK A TO Z
Love it or H8 it, techie lingo is popping up everywhere. Here's a guide to deciphering it
A
AAR8: At any rate
ALTG: Act locally, think globally
B
BAK: Back at keyboard
Boring.com: implies something is a flop
CCBB: Can't be bothered
CYM: Check your mail
D
DIKU: Do I know you?
DYHAB: Do you have a boyfriend?
DYHAG: Do you have a girlfriend?
E
EAK: Eating at keyboard
EOD: End of day
F
FOFL: Falling on floor laughing
G
GAP?: Got a picture?
H
HB: Hurry back
HIG: How's it going
I
ID1OT: Idiot
IRL: In real life
J
JAM: Just a minute
JUADLAM: Jumping up and down like a monkey
K
KIT: Keep in touch
KOTC: Kiss on the cheek
L
LKITR: Little kid in the room
LTNS: Long time no see
M
M4C : Meet for coffee
MOOS : Member of the opposite sex
N
NBD: No big deal
NOYB: None of your business
O
OT: Off topic
P
PB: Potty break
Q
QT: Cutie
R
RBTL: Read between the lines
RLF: Real life friend
S
SIT: Stay in touch
T
TDTM: Talk dirty to me
TMI: Too much information
U
URWS: You are wise
V
VM: Voice mail
W
Wru: Where are you
X
XMe: Excuse me
Y
YKW: You know what
Z
ZZzz: Sleepy
Sad to say, of the 26 letters, I am only familiar with WRU and ZZzz. 2 / 26 = 7.7% I failed miserably at geek speak.

Cash Rebates vs Rewards Redemption

Instead of rewards redemption based on points accumulated from credit card expenditure, there are cards that give direct cash rebates based on amount spent. The Citibank Dividend card was one of the first (that I know off) to come up with this cash redemption scheme. However, it was not attractive to me because the rebate seemed very low ~0.5% of what you spent + redemption had to be accumulated to a certain sum ($50). This means I must spent $10,000 on the credit card before I can get back the rebate of $50. There’s no way I can hit a credit card expenditure of $10,000 in a year. Subsequently, POSB came up with the POSB Everyday card which promises ‘instant cash rebate with no minimum redeemable amount’. So I applied for the card. The 5% rebate for purchases at Carrefour was also a good deal. However, one question bugs me. They highlighted the various merchants that gave good rebates, eg: Carrefour 5%, SPC Petrol 4%, Watson 2%. But are ALL purchases eligible for cash rebates? After scrutinizing their website writeup, I noted that ‘Purchases at non-participating merchants = 0.3%’. So the answer is Yes. If you purchase at participating merchants, you stand to get higher rebates, while at non-participating merchants, you are guaranteed a 0.3% rebate. The catches:
1) For my UOB card, I can get a $20 voucher for minimum 600points (expenditure of $3000). That is about 0.67% rebate regardless of what merchant. Which means if I am going to buy from a ‘non-participating merchant’ of POSB card, I am better off using UOB card to pay.

2) POSB list supposedly 500 participating merchants, but most dun seem (to me) to be the really popular retailers. For instance, Chin Wah Heng Seafood , Hawaiian Barbeque (Turf City), Camper's Corner , Cenedela , Kindergolf? In trying to be the card for everyone, POSB does not have a focus, and any kuching kurat merchant + goods and services (eg Maternity, Golf, Kids enrichment) that I dun really need are touted. Which means I am more likely to purchase from a ‘non-participating merchant’ which goes back to 1).

3) Participating merchants are the ones that we can redeem the cash rebates. This differs from Citibank’s Dividend card which literally gives you back the cash. The cash rebate by POSB has its restriction because it can only be used at selected merchants. This is about the same as reward point redemption where we choose from a pre-determined selection of vouchers. Due to POSB’s lack of relevant merchants for me, I will end up getting cash rebates mainly for purchases at Carrefour and Watson. The selection is very ‘wide’ indeed.


Conclusion: looks like it’s still back to UOB to earn my dining vouchers.

Races in Singapore

As a Singaporean, we have known since young about the various ethnic groups in Singapore. There are Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian and Others. These groups are distinct and most of the time, it is easy for us to identify them based on their appearance. Nevertheless, I realized I have taken this race issue for granted, as my knowledge was tested on an overseas trip. Cant remember which trip it was, but I do recall it was on a tour with other tour members who came from different countries all over the world. I usually go on F&E tours and join the local tours. So in one particular tour, a friendly Caucasian wanted to know more about Singapore, and the conversation broached to races. I mentioned that Singapore has the 4 main races, and the listener asked me, about Malays and Indians. As a Caucasian, his idea of Indian was the Red Indians in US. We easily clarified that these were people who came from India. As for Malays, he had never heard of this group of people. Who are they? This time, I was stumped. Hmmm.. a Malay is a Malay lor….. but of cos, that’s not a good answer when we are being the informal ambassador of our country. The second thing that came to our mind – people from Malaysia. Well, he bought that, and there was no further questions. But in my mind, I also felt this answer to be too sweeping. There are Malaysia Chinese, Malaysia Indians too.. I started to be more aware of the origins of Malay in Singapore. From what I gathered, most of them came from Indonesia, eg Java and Sumatra regions. But lately, I read in the papers, under Malaysia’s Federal Constitution, 'Malay means a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, (and) conforms to Malay custom’. From my observations, the language spoken by Singapore Malays is the same as that of Malaysian Malays, while in Indonesia, the Bahasa Indonesian language is slightly different from those in Singapore / Malaysia. So if Singapore Malays originated from Indonesia, why are they more similar to Malaysian Malays than Indonesians? Hmm… I see the same situation in Chinese. Singaporean Chinese and Malaysian Chinese are more similar than to their China counterparts though we all have our roots in China. My theory is this: maybe in early years, many Indonesians migrated to Malaysia and Singapore and in time to come, established their own identity as Malays. Since Malaysia and Singapore have historically been closely linked, it is no surprise that Singapore and Malaysia Malays share many similarities. Still, how best to explain to someone who has no inkling what is a Malay? Going by their religion (Islam) may make the person relate more to those in the middle east……

I am the first

I like to read other people’s blogs. And like many others, I also flock to the sites of popular bloggers eg: Singapore’s most famous blogger, Malaysia’s most famous blogger etc. Being famous and popular blogsites, each blog entry is usually followed by numerous comments from readers / fans / friends. However, one silly thing I noticed is that, many times, the comments are just non-constructive. Most of the time I dun read the comments, but inevitably when we scroll to the end of the blog entry, we would chance upon the first few comments. The worst belongs to those who finding themselves being the first to leave a comment, happily notes “Hey, I am the first”. It’s so meaningless and pathetic to proclaim yourself as the first to leave a comment in a blog entry and the content of the comment is to announce yourself as ‘first’. Of course, it is even more blood puking if you also chanced upon the second comment that goes “and I am the second!” Maybe it would be interesting to note and tally how many pathetic sheep counting commentors (sorry, no such word, but u get what I mean) are there on average.

Mean Spidey

Is Spiderman III better than the earlier 2 shows? I’m not so sure cos I dun remember the first 2 anymore. I think I like Spiderman 1, but not Spiderman 2. Part 3 isnt too bad too, cos there are more good looking villains. I dun like Tobey Maguire (as Spiderman) or Kirsten Dunst (as Mary Jane). To me, both r not good looking enough to be the lead actor/actress in A-list shows. I even saw sagging double chins on them at certain angles. And when they wanted to portray Spiderman as charming, aggressive and woman magnet instead of nerdy goody boy, Tobey Maguire did all sorts of groovy moves to make him seem slick, hip and cool.. But to me, he just CMI. Trying hard, but still din make it. The transformation was not convincing and he just seemed like a nerd trying to be cool. I watched Spiderman, but I like the villains James Franco (as Harry Osburn) and Topher Grace (as Eddie Brock) better. And Mr Sandman reminds me of Arnold Schwarzenegger....

Oh ya, there’s a lot of blockbusters coming up. Saw the trailer for Pirates of the Carribean – World’s End (part 3). Inside, Chow Yun Fatt tells the world ‘I’m a pirate from Singapore’.. LOL! I wonder how much did our government contribute to the show for this advertisement. What a way to brand Singapore.

Review old practice, dun just stay put

As I had just shifted to my own place, I needed to apply for utilities and telephone line. Water and electricity supply being the more urgent matter, I applied for that immediately after getting the house key so that I can do my house renovation. SP services allows us to apply online so that we can quickly activate the essential utilities while the hardcopy of the application form is then mailed to us subsequently. We then have to complete the form, return to them (in the self-enclosed enveloped) with a photocopy of NRIC of the applicant. The initial deposit was billed later on.
In contrast, when I wanted to apply for a telephone line, there was no ‘online submission’ choice. At best, we could download a copy of the application form to fill in first. But we still had to apply for it in person through the postal offices. Why so? I thought it could be because they needed us to place a deposit before activating the line. However, after I made my telephone line application in person at a postal office, I discovered that they did not need me to pay any deposit (it will be billed subsequently). The only use of this ‘in-person application’ was so that the postal office employee can verify my NRIC details before they submit the application form. What a screwed up process. Why cant they follow SP services to let us submit a photocopy of NRIC? Even if they had wanted us to place deposit, they could have opted for credit card deposit. This arcane practice of submission in person has no value-add, and only waste my time and the postal office’s time. It is sad that Singtel did not bother to keep up with the times to review their system, and allow this old way to stay even though it is no longer needed. These days, even the application of TV licence can be done online with payment through credit card. Singapore must be the only place where the government is even more efficient and customer oriented than the private sector.

nb: I emailed them thru their website to feedback on this application process. Its been 2 weeks and I did not get any response. Not surprising. Navigating through their website, you dun get a sense of 'customer oriented' / userfriendliness kind of feeling..

How protected are you?

Recently I started obsessing about my insurance coverage. Am I adequately covered? We all know that medical costs will only increase in time to come, and as we aged, we are more likely to contract some major illness like cancers and tumors. If I am stricken with some major illness, will I be able to afford private hospital treatment rather than government hospitals? (I used to think government hospitals are good enough, but after some bad word-of-mouth publicity + unfavourable newspaper coverage, I think my best bet of getting a cure s to go to a private hospital). More importantly, will I be able to afford treatment during my older years without depleting my retirement fund?

So I started looking around at the various health insurance plans. My first thought was to get a term policy for critical illness, then I can be covered for a big sum (eg $250k) while paying a small premium, ~ $600 per year. But then I realized the catch is, if your illness is major, but not critical (eg: cancer, but not advance stage), you will not get any payout of the insurance. How then, am I supposed to pay for treatment of major illness at the still curable early stage? I turned to look at hospitalization plans (something like medishield). These plans have generous payouts as long as you are warded / need treatment. Doesn’t even have to be major illness , which covers another loophole in the critical illness term insurance. For instance, if I get dengue and am warded for 10 days, it’s not serious enough to be able to claim under critical illness, but hospitalization insurance will pay because I have been hospitalized.

At a glance, the ‘A’ plans for hospitalization under the various insurance companies seemed really attractive. Unlike basic medishield plans, some of these ‘gold class’ medishield plans offer no limit on the amount of claim per day. For instance, you can stay in A class wards in the best private hospital, and the claim limit is ‘as charged’ rather than ‘up to $600’ per day for daily ward and treatment charges. Generous compensation is provided for surgeries, organ implants, cancer treatments and even additional payouts for major illness… ok, so I should be bulletproof then…

Not so. Let’s look at the minor catch first. 1) There is a limit to how much you can claim per year and per policy lifetime. Meaning, once u have exhausted the amount you can claim per year, you have to wait until the next policy year to claim (if u are still alive by then). And if you reached the overall limit you can claim, you can kiss goodbye to the insurance. Of cos, this is a small issue as most of the ‘A’ plans offer generous payouts for the yearly limit (about 200,000) and 1mil – 3mil for lifetime limit. We are not likely to exceed this amount.

The fine print is, before you even get to claim, you are killed by the deductibles and co-insurance. Co-insurance is a euphemism for co-pay. The bottom-line is, if you want to be highly covered for staying A class wards / private hospital, be prepared to fork out $3000 upfront + 10% of the remaining bill before the insurance coverage kicks in.

At the end of the day, we still need to have adequate savings to tide us through in the event we get major but not critical illness. The irony is that having early curable stage of a major illness might set us back more than the advanced stage (because the critical illness policy does not kick in at the early stage). My conclusion is, stay with government hospitals, avoid A class wards so that you dun deplete your savings in the event of major but not critical stage of illness.

I dun need this!

Stupid bank officer called me on my mobile
Bank: Is it convenient to talk to you now?
Me: What is it regarding? (I bet a million bucks that it is some sales pitch)
Bank: It is regarding this new cash credit offer we have
(aiya, I won my million bucks bet. but with who?)
Me: I dun need it
Bank: Yes but it is free right now if you apply
Me: I dun need it
Bank: Yes but we are offering you a credit limit 2 times your salary
Me: I dun need it, I dun need it…I dun need it (My mind went into ‘auto switch off’ mode, and I am about to yawn thanks to my repetitive and limited response)
Bank: Ok thank you bye.
Stupid bank officer just bulldozed my response away without comprehending. Hello?! You understand English or not? Dun need means dun need! I dun care what kind of good offers you have. What’s the point of free application when I dun need it?! If u offer me free coffeemaker + free blender + free voucher… I can still consider your offer. You think your ‘free application’ is a damn good deal that I will jump at the chance? Wake up your idea … other banks offer better freebies than you.

Must be too much coffee in the morning that’s making me so jumpy.

On another note, I am really apprehensive when it comes to dealing with POSB and DBS, since they used to be government banks. I imagine bureaucracies and lousy service when it comes to these 2 banks. Hence for years, I have not had any dealings with them. Due to the lure of the POSB everyday card, I sign up for it, n was enticed to get a DBS Black card because of the free coffeemaker stated in the brochure. Nonetheless, when I received my Black card, there was no indication of free coffeemaker at all. Called up the customer service who got back to me 3 days later at night (when I was asleep). I vaguely remembered the conversation that the promotion has ended, so I will not be getting the coffeemaker. Forgot if I had asked to cancel the card then. Nevertheless, I shall send a ‘feedback’ letter to them while canceling my card. After all, I dun need this card.