Try downloading and printing out Calendar Planner for year 2015, which is done by me!
Every year, I’m creating this Calendar Planner for everyone. It is something simple and I’m glad quite a number of people have complimented me over this free tool.
Someone be nice and print out a copy for me as well!
Category Archives: Singapore
+095487821 Singapore Phone
I have just received a missed call from this number +095487821. After doing a Google search, I realise many people have received the call from this weird number as well. It’s definitely not safe to pick up the call!
This number called me just now. I picked up but did not say anything. If the caller is sincere to reach you– they should atleast say a word.
yes it’s just called me 4 time and I just dun wanna pick it up, my friends picked up some call and starhub charge him hundred dollar for nth. From sg too. Damn all these nonsense calls
+095487821
Received call, asking me if I can talk in Chinese. I said no, call got disconnected immediately
I just picked up this called and she mentioned that is some sort of restaurant opens in botanic gardens and letting people to have free food to try out next Friday from 10am-10pm. I go search around i don’t think it does exist! oh [***]! I gonna see my next month bill. (ps: I’m staying in Singapore too)
Received these calls a few times on different days. Didn’t pick up cause my friend say they trying to talk nonsense for 1 min or 2 to get money from the phone line bill. They charge our service provider and starhub m1 singtel charge us. The number is +095487821.
Ridiculous After-Sales Service from Gain City
I purchased a front-loading washing machine (brand Electrolux) from the Gain City fair at EXPO on 1st November 2013. The order number was SORCS-80050274.
The salesman, Gary Kee, from the Elextrolux booth was very approachable and with the information given, we chose the brand despite there were quite a number of cheaper alternatives for the same basic specifications.
My family was in need of a washing machine badly to replace our spoiled one and thus we got the earliest delivery appointment, which happened to be on 5th November 2013 in between 4-7pm. The old washing machine had caused quite a big dispute among my family. The urgency was the reason why my mum and I had rushed down to the fair on its very first day.
On the delivery day itself, the delivery-man (phone number 93847140) called me at 12.19pm and said that he would reach my place at 1.30pm, which was a few hours earlier than the scheduled time (4-7pm). I thought it would be good for my side since we could use the machine earlier to clear the days of unwashed clothes and I gladly agreed. I changed my personal plan in order to receive them at the amended timing.
Two Malay men arrived at around 1.30pm to clear my old washing machine and fixed up the new one fast. Since I thought Gain City was a big company and that Electrolux was an old brand, I did not do thorough checking. Besides I was also not familiar with washing machine since I had not even used my old one. I played a good host to the two gentlemen and even offered them packet drinks before they left.
Earlier on during the purchasing day, despite repeated prompts from us, the salesman insisted the wasted water release hose that was routed upwards and clipped on the top corner could not be detached. Since we had been using top-loading washing machine all along, we were totally clueless about the system of front-loaders. We were shocked but glad when the delivery-men detached the hose from the corner of the new washing machine, such that the hose was long enough to be dragged into my bathroom, which also meant that my mum had wasted her effort and money to purchase a hose extender. It seemed that the salesman had given us a silly wrong information (he was right actually – read on to find out why).
The nightmare came right after the delivery-men left. We tried using the new washing machine by pouring detergent in and we realised the compartment could not be closed fully. We were told by the salesman that water would be splashed into the compartment to load the detergent into the main compartment, and logically thinking, the detergent compartment had to be closed fully if we did not want any water to spill out.
We tried calling Gain City but nobody picked up the phone. After some trying, I decided to contact the delivery-man who called me earlier instead. It was 2pm and just less than half an hour upon the delivery time. The man told me he was already at Bukit Merah – my location was Tanjong Pagar. I told him the problem of the detergent compartment and he insisted the washing machine was designed this way. As I insisted, the delivery-man promised to return.
My family (mum, sister-in-law and I) waited at home for the delivery-men until 6pm. Then, we called Gain City directly again and managed to get through. The staff helped us to arrange with the same delivery-men to return at around 7.30pm, which they did. After some reasoning with the delivery-men, they finally admitted it was a defect. One of them made a phone call (probably back to his office) and he claimed the product was perfect during delivery just because I had signed the paper to verify that I had received it. He also told the person over the phone that we had contacted him over the defect an hour later (it was definitely less than half an hour, inclusive of the time we had tried to contact Gain City directly).
Logically and obviously, the product arrived with the detergent compartment not able to be closed completely and the delivery-men had initially claimed it was designed to be that way. By insisting that the washing machine was built that way (“spoiled”) as it arrived, the delivery-men had indirectly admitted that it arrived as a defected product. It was stupid for them to point fingers at us just to get away with it.
I received a call from Electrolux (phone number 65078699) on the next morning (Wednesday) and was informed that the technician could only drop by my place on the next day. This means that if it happened that the defected washing machine had to be replaced (which we hoped), it would take more days for the new one to come.
Gain City could have replaced the new washing machine and settled the defected product with Electrolux directly. Eventually, the problem was pushed to Electrolux and we had to wait for Electrolux’s technician, who happened to be so busy that we had to wait until the third day.
If you were the consumer who had to waste so much time in order to get a proper washing machine, such that your household laundry could not be done for days, how would you feel?
These were the initial conclusions I had drawn from the entire incident:
– Gain City’s salesmen did not know their products well (I was wrong)
– Gain City’s delivery-men did not know their products well
– Gain City’s staffs would try all ways to push away their responsibility, inclusive of insisting defected products were designed the way
– Electrolux’s products were not as great as I had heard, such that their technicians were overloaded with servicing of their customers’ problems with the products
I was furious when I realised I had to wait for another day for the technician to come over. The thought of the blaming game forced me to email both Gain City and Electrolux to get advice whether there was any way I could get my new washing machine ready/fixed sooner than the next (third) day and if Gain City or Electrolux would send manpower down to hand-wash my clothes before the new machine was settled (sarcasm of course!).
I attached four images:
1. Phone log from my phone. The delivery-man arrived at around 1.30pm and I managed to contact them in less than half an hour upon they left, inclusive of the time I tried to contact Gain City directly. It was never as claimed by them that I contacted them about the defect after more than an hour.
2. The back of the washing machine. The salesman gave us the wrong information that the hose could not be detached from the back where there’s a screw (top left of photo). If the hose has to be routed from bottom to the screw part, it would not be long enough to be pulled to the bathroom to release the dirty water, and thus my mum had bought an extender.
3. Side view of the washing machine. This is the main problem. The detergent compartment cannot be closed completely and the delivery-men initially insisted it was meant to be like that.
4. Front view of the washing machine. Obviously, no designer would design the compartment to be not aligned with the main body when closed.
Gain City ignored my email but a gentleman from Electrolux called me directly to assure me that his technician would fix all the problems. Furthermore, he told me that the delivery-men from Gain City should not have detached the hose behind – the salesman was right after all.
Electrolux’s technician arrived as scheduled. He was a very friendly man around my age who helped to entertain my mum while he worked. He opened up the washing machine and hammered something inside to loosen the detergent compartment. He said one possible cause was that the washing machine was knocked during delivery. Then, he also attached the hose at the back, telling us that the water might flow out continuously if the hose was not placed at a higher place. He brought along a very hard hose to extend the existing one for us. Things were sweetened by the gentleman.
A week later, my mum noticed that the pail she placed besides the washing machine was filled with water. There was a few times when the floor was wet as well. It happened that all of us had used the washing machine during that period of time. We were all wondering if one of us had been forgetting to place the end of the hose to the bathroom while using it. After some inspections, we realised the hose attached to the tap was not properly joined by the Gain City delivery-men and thus some water was dripping.
Eventually, I could only conclude that the Gain City’s delivery-men knew nothing about their products. After sales service was disgustingly terrible. They did not even care to apologise for the problem they had caused.
My advice for all customers of Gain City is to make the delivery-men stay behind during the delivery to make sure the process of washing the clothes by the new washing machine is completed without any problem before signing any document to acknowledge receiving the product before “releasing” them.
NEA Officer Reacted Fast
When I was having lunch with my mum and younger brother on 24th December (Christmas Eve), my brother complained that he was molested by the mosquitoes during the short trip to the nearby coffee shop. I noticed that there was a pool of water being trapped at the construction area of the new lift below my house. I was quite worried about mosquito breeding and thus I decided to inform NEA about it. This time, instead of using email, I used their Android APP to take a photo and submitted my feedback.
Two days later, I received a call from a NEA officer telling me that he had checked the place and assured me that the contractors had poured some oil over it. Even though they took two days to get back to me, it during Christmas period and I was really impressed by their speed of work.
Bad Encounters with Online Sellers in Singapore
For certain thing such as photography, your skill is restricted to your equipments. I may not be an excellent photographer yet, but I’m already being annoyed by the restriction, such that my full potential cannot be shown. My current camera bodies cannot give me the clarity of photos that I need to impress (to get businesses); my flash is not powerful and has limitation in rotation, and I need at least two of them for portrait photoshoot. Such restrictions can be neglected by playing around, but, at the lost of creativity. Therefore, I have been looking at refurnished (second hand) gears that I can buy at a cheaper price to move further in this trade – photography.
I have so far done three meet-ups and two are disastrous.
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1343429
Nickname: maxspeed
Name: Lum
Number: 93800867
Email: sugathlum@gmail.com
I saw this advertisement for a Canon 580 EX-ii flash and the owner made it sound like it was a very good bargain. Indeed, for the price ($400) and extra goodies that came along with it, it was a good grab given that the owner was honest about the condition.
I arranged a meet-up with him at Vivocity last week at 6.30pm. I went earlier to look at stuffs and at the meeting time, he replied me that he was still in a meeting and could not turn up. I told him I would wait for him for some time since I had to do some shopping. About an hour later, I had to leave since I had to packet food home for my elder brother and sister-in-law, and thus I dropped him another text politely. He did not reply me since he told me he was held up in his meeting, showing no sense of guilt.
A few days later, I saw in his forum post that he had sold his flash unit away. I would describe him as irresponsible and proud.
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1346875
Nickname: canonone
Name: Hua
Number: 9six5899one9 (96589919)
My next disappointment came after I saw a canon 24-70mm F2.8L mark i lens on the same forum. The seller insisted to meet at Ang Mo Kio and I made my trip all the way down, thinking it was a good bargain again since it’s written as “good condition and clean”.
The seller turned up earlier than the meeting time and I thought all was good. He started speaking in English and I thought he was an Indonesian Chinese who could not speak well in the language. At certain point of time, I could not figure out what he was talking about. When I noticed that there was problem with the lens and was discussing with Gilbert right in front of him, he suddenly started speaking in Chinese and I realised he was a PRC.
When I looked through it at the light, there were something like bubbles. The seller kept insisting his lens was in good condition though. It was obvious that there was a big issue with the glass of the lens at the part where it would fit into the camera, which was very unusual. I was not able to make out what those things were, but they were obviously not dust. I tried asking him to use a spectacle cloth to clean it but he insisted we could only use a blower, which I did not bring along. He was also quick to want to brush off the deal politely, which showed his guilt.
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1347448
I realised he posted a new advertisement on the same forum a couple of hours later. There differences were:
1. The price was reduced from $1200 to $1100.
2. “good condition and clean” description was removed.
3. Rating of condition was reduced from 9/10 to 8/10.
If he was not guilty of the condition of his lens, he would not have done these. The problem on the lens was definitely not dust, which could easily be blown and wiped off. To put it in simple, the lens was not even 1/10 for the condition – it could not be used at all.
I’m not sure if he is out to cheat.
People Take Things for Granted
Just recently, I faced another setback in my life in the name of kindness.
Many months back, a net friend of mine approached me to take photos for her son’s one-year-old birthday party, which would fall on 21st September 2013. During that time, I was only doing voluntary work for charity and friends, and I was not prepared to get any paid shoot. She was a young mother (born in year 1991) after all and I thought I could help. However, I did not want anyone to take things for granted, and thus I told her I would not do it for free but she had to give me a red packet. She even had to ask her husband about engaging me and the green light was given the next day as expected. Then she confirmed with me the location, date and time.
Within that few weeks, I saw photos of her son doing baby photoshoot in her Facebook profile, which she stated cost hundreds of dollars – nearer to a grand figure if I did not remember wrongly. It was really stunning because not many parents whom I knew of had spent that amount of money. The most outrageous thing was that she could afford such photoshoot package and yet tried to get me to shoot for her for free. That was when I regretted promising her for the birthday party shoot but a promise was a promise.
The day before the event, I messaged her in Facebook to check if there was any changes, which photographers would usually do. She took a while to reply me, telling me “Yes. Currently bz. Text you Later..sorry!”
I realised something was wrong and went into her Facebook profile again. I was amazed to see a photo of the printed invitational cards that stated 22nd September 2013 instead of 21st. It was obvious that she had changed the date of the party and she had left me out totally.
Anyone with a brain would have informed the photographer (or any party) if there was a change of date, time or venue. Even if she was not interested in getting my help, she could have told me directly. If I did not check with her, or rather, check it on my own, I would have gone down to 30 Sturdee Road like a fool on the initial date she had told me. The most amazing thing was that when I messaged her, just the evening before the “actual” date, she did not even bother to tell me immediately that the date was changed.
Instead of getting back to me to explain anything or cancel the appointment with me, due to her very busy schedule, she could update her own Facebook photo. To think I had even told my elder brother that I could not attend his company’s barbeque session, which fell on the exact “same” day and time, it was silly. I actually had blocked out the date in my schedule for her party.
It took me lots of patience to message her again hours later at 11 plus in the night. I blasted out the little intelligence I had gathered and she simply said she was overloaded that day that she had not even taken her dinner. It was only when I pointed out that the the invitational cards were ready a week ago and that the date was definitely changed earlier, she admitted it was her fault. I got to realise that it was the actual birthday of her son on that day itself and she had spent money to engage another freelance photographer for a photoshoot during the day, which “explained” why she was so busy at night – I could not understand it though.
I was lucky because I did not get to help her eventually. I was used to do free work for the society and friends, but I would never want to give any free work to people with such attitude.
My mistake is trusting people too easily and being too kind to net “friend”. The fact is even rich people ask for “free” stuffs and thus do not assume people are not well-to-do just because they want free help from you. The reality of life is that if someone is given something free or almost free, she will likely to be unappreciative of it, and probably forget about it. This incident will act like a gun pointing at me, reminding me to be fair to myself and also to collect a deposit upon confirming a photo shoot. I’m also done with free event photo shoot, unless it is for charity organisation.
68547070 Telemarketing Singapore Spam
Here you go, dear company of Singapore number 68547070. Thanks for waking me up and making me so sleepy throughout the day. I did not pick up your foreign talent staff’s call because I was expecting such call and I did not want to lose my temper.
I did a Google search for your number when I was fully up and I felt I was the smartest guy on Earth for I got it right. There were so many complaints about you online.
Let’s just wait for next year’s new law from IDA to be implemented and I will report you for sure if you continue to do such disgusting thing.
Let me highlight – NO, I’m not interested in any of your investment or insurance product. FULL STOP.
Note: I assume the caller is a foreign talent because most of these nuisance calls I have received are from either Indian or Pinoy so far.
Think Big, Think for Your Country
My lunch for yesterday was served with a free show. It was a tired day because I went to bed right before sunrise and my house could never be quiet during daylight for whatever reason. My younger brother, mum and elder sister-in-law had our lunch at the coffee shop between block 7 and 8. We were welcomed with loud noises.
Two women were quarreling very fiercely. It was a good Chinese listening comprehension test for us, as we tried to figure out what was going on while being challenged by the high pitch. They had obviously come over to Singapore from the same country.
I was not trying to be cheeky but at one stage of their aggressive debate when one woman called the other “china woman” and was rebutted that she was also from China, I almost burst into laughter. It was not about any race or nationality that was funny, but the fact that one probably thought her own country people’s were “low class” and tried to insult her kind. Anyway, through this, we understood that the first woman was probably a new citizen who used to be a China’s Chinese.
We were very confused over their roles since we rarely dined over that coffee shop during lunch time, but we assumed a local looking Chinese man standing inside the noodle stall was the owner. The man looked frustratedly lost and tried to calm down the first woman at times. Suddenly, the second woman stepped into the stall’s boundary and tried to take out some dollar notes from a box at the display area. She was stopped by the first woman who threatened to call the police, pointing to the top where she claimed there was a CCTV. The money was eventually safe after some physical contacts like grabbing of hands. That was a time when I thought a fierce fight was going to take place.
We were not able to figure out their relationship and whenever both of them were the stall’s staffs. It was until another man whose accent was obviously from mainland China as well came over to help the second woman, we got some hints. The first woman told them the vegetable cost money and a few cents was also money; and if her opponent wanted, the whole plate could be sold at $10. We might be wrong but the cat fight could be started due to the second woman asking for extra vegetable (the “cong”), and maybe, for large portion. Therefore, we got to figure out that the first lady was from the stall while the second woman was her customer. Since the local man inside the stall was most likely to be the owner and yet he could not stop the first woman, while she tried so hard to fight for the benefit of the stall, she was probably the ladyboss. Of course, I had taken into account that our talented Singapore government was not so lousy to give away free citizenship to just a stall helper (not an elite). However, I was puzzled because even though it was a trend for older Singapore men to “buy” foreign wives, there was definitely some “standard” in the ladies’ appearances. I was being frank and did not mean to insult the “ladyboss”.
The customers went back to their seats outside the coffee shop eventually. Then, the “ladyboss” went over to continue with the debate, insulting the clients that they were too poor to pay up. After some speeches delivered by both of them, there was a short tea break. The male customer who seemed to be trying to stop the mess earlier started taking photos of the stall using his phone. He was probably going to talk about the incident in his weibo or renren. The customers (probably just the woman) refused to leave. A few minutes later, we were stunned when the “ladyboss” went over to apologise to the customers. We thought she should be more firm if she had done nothing wrong right from the start but it was good that she brought herself down to try to end the drama. The customer was, however, not as graceful and continued to stare at the stall owners. After her partner walked off towards Pinnacle Duxton, she continued to hang around but eventually moved to the corner of the coffee shop where they probably could not have eye-contact.
I was not sure if the customer had left when two policemen finally arrived. The men-in-blue looked lost and went off without walking into the coffee shop. A few minutes later, they returned and the male stall owner approached them to probably give a short explanation. The entire peace was regained very soon after the two gentlemen left. Both of them were lucky since the cat fight had ended earlier, or otherwise, it was going to be a tough situation to handle.
I am quite narrative about the entire drama but the main purpose is not about who had started it nor who was at fault. Frankly speaking, many people from all over the world have quite bad impression on Chinese from the mainland and it is caused by the huge number of black sheep among them. I have quite a number of China-born Chinese friends who are very good people to communicate with, and I really feel sorry for them. Imagine two Singaporeans quarreling at overseas and even try to put one down by claiming she is from Singapore, she is simply slapping herself. It is definitely an embarrassment to their country.
It is a common sense that if you put one foreigner among nine locals, there may be some chances that the foreigner will pick up the local culture. However, if you place four foreigners with six locals, the four talents are more likely to hang out among themselves and there is so much greater probability that some of the locals will be influenced by the foreigners’ culture instead. The first scenario is called integration into the locals while the second one is creating of a new culture by mixing both. The worst thing is when probably two of the six “locals” have just become locals after staying for a few years.
I believe not all citizen from any country is bad (having bad culture), and there are many Singaporeans who are problematic as well. However, the number of black sheep from some countries may much higher.
Home Cleaning Project at Bukit Merah
https://www.facebook.com/sillydumb/media_set?set=a.10153059402945307.1073741863.653480306
While you were probably still asleep on a Sunday morning, our team was already out on a mission to clear up the house of a lonely lady staying in a one-room flat in Jalan Bukit Merah.
Huiting was arranging the cleaning a few weeks ago together with the earlier free soup project for the residents (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152994532110307.1073741858.653480306), but luckily we did not put the projects on the same day, otherwise we might need to work until late evening.
The flat’s condition was definitely unsuitable for human beings to live in. It was packed almost fully that at any point of time, only a few people could step in; anyway, it was just too dirty and dusty, with a foul smell, that not many people would want to do that. We could not even see her single size bed and she was very used to sleep on a chair instead.
Elderly would not want to throw away any useless stuff because the item might come into good use in future (if they could locate the item). Moreover, many things were parts of their lives and dumping any was kind of like throwing their memories away. If your mum was from a very poor family throughout her life, you could probably been living in a messy house like mine, but trust me, your living condition could never be as bad as that.
We used gloves and masks. Some gloves were torn and my hands were most of the time soaked in water since I had to dip the cloths into the pails of water often. The masks could not filter off the smell and Yonghao had to change a few because they were soaked in his sweat.
The corridor was packed with her items, stretching to around three doors away. I made many trips down to the garbage collection centre with heavvy loads. Each time the auntie said yes to throwing any item, we would cheer because that would lessen the mess.
During lunch time, we bumped into a big group of SMU students who were on their mission to interact with the elderly over the area to find out their problems and needs. They were very nice to send manpower over to assist us despite they were very busy as well.
The auntie was not someone who took things by granted. She apologised and thanked us very often. She even called a friend to buy can drinks for us. She also forced us to take a special edition Singapore coin each by threatening to chase us away.
We went to Tanglin Halt with two big red plastic bags of her clothes to wash while we had our dinner over there. Then, we brought them to return to the auntie before we set off to Yonghao’s house since his dad had to use the lorry. After that, we went to Serangoon Garden for dessert to end the day.
The photos were taken without using speedlite and thus there might be grain and blurriness caused by high ISO and slow shutter speed. My hands were in a big mess throughout. It was extremely challenging to be the photographer when you needed to participate in the mission as well.
Credits:
Su Huiting
Lee Yong Hao
Ahpa Sae Yeoh
Precious Jadey
Guo Yong Sheng
Nancy Quek
Jiayu
SMU students from SHINE programme
Camera: Canon 650D
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm F2.8
Free museum entry for Singaporeans and PRs
Beginning today, 18 May 2013, some museums and heritage institutions are free for Singaporeans and PRs to visit.
They are:
Singapore Art Museum
National Museum of Singapore
Asian Civilisations Museum
The Peranakan Museum
Singapore Philatelic Museum
National Art Gallery (slated to open in 2015)
Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall
Malay Heritage Centre Indian Heritage Centre (slated to open in 2015)
Reflections at Bukit Chandu
Hopefully I can do photoshoot inside some of them!