Dear Editors,
We need an explanation why Mcdonalds indicated a criteria for “Chinese and Malay only” for a concept and product taste test without any explanation whatsoever…
Are they being racist? Is the food product only for Malay or Chinese consumption? Other races not entitled to buy their fast food products?
Michelle Joseph
A.S.S. Contributor
Source: www.allsingaporestuff.com
Four former employees of now-defunct Sim Lim square electronics shop Mobile Air pleaded guilty on Thursday (Oct 1) morning and were convicted on 13 counts of cheating.
Koh Guan Seng, 38, Kam Kok Keong, 31, Kelvin Lim Zhi Wei, 32, and Lim Hong Ching, 34, had been employed by Jover Chew Chiew Loon as freelance sales executives in 2013 and 2014.
Chew devised a ‘sales modus operandi’, which he taught to the four men, to cheat unsuspecting customers of Mobile Air. The men would receive a 40% of commission of the profits made from their sales.
Together, the four accomplices cheated customers of almost S$16,000 by unscrupulous sales tactics. For example, Kelvin Lim pressured a customer, a Bangladeshi national working as a construction worker in Singapore, to sign a blank invoice. The foursome would also add additional items to invoices after they had been signed by customers, and refuse to hand over the purchased products until additional payments had been made.
THE ‘SALES MODUS OPERANDI’
Chew controlled the pricing of all mobile devices at Mobile Air, and instructed his salesmen to sell the devices at prices higher than what he would indicate on the packaging.
Chew would indicate this ‘price to beat’ on the packaging of each device by using the letters in the world ‘S-I-N-G-A-P-O-R-E’ to represent the digits ‘1’ to ‘9’, and any other letter to represent zero.
For example, S$1,148 would be represented by the letters ‘SSGR’.
Salesmen who sold the devices at a lesser price than indicated by Chew would be personally liable for the difference.
Mobile Air’s standard practice was to offer customers an attractive price for devices, and collect full payment from customers straight away. However, upon receiving full payment, the customer, instead of receiving the device, would be confronted with various sales tactics.
Salesmen would add additional items to invoices previously signed by customers upon agreement on the initial sale prices. The men would then withhold the devices and demand further payment. This method of collecting payment in two stages, and not stating any additional payment when negotiating the initial prices, was used to cheat at least 25 victims.
‘A BRAZEN CASE OF CHEATING’: DPPs
Deputy Public Prosecutors Eunice Lim, Charis Low and Victoria Ting called this “a brazen case of cheating”, noting that even the involvement of the police and the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) and the Small Claims Tribunal (SCT) did not deter nor limit the four accused’s resolve to cheat customers.
Many of the victims were low-wage workers, with limited understanding of the English language and consumer rights. The salesmen, in several instances, also demanded victims to hand over their ATM cards and threatened to call the victims’ employers and have their work permits revoked.
Kelvin Lim even accompanied a victim to an ATM machine to check his balance, and proceeded to empty the victim’s bank account, leaving him with a balance of just S$7.
The men faced between one and six charges of cheating each, for which they could be punished with up to 10 years’ jail and a fine.
DPPs Lim, Low and Ting are seeking imprisonment terms of between at least five and 16 months’ jail for the quartet.
The men are expected to be sentenced on Oct 14.
Chew’s case is still before the courts. He is facing a total of 28 charges.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
Hi Gilbert,
I came across your website while googling people who are in my plight and would like to share my thoughts and experiences with you.
I have a diploma in accounting (merit) from a local polytechnic. After NS, I was rejected by NUS for a place in Business School but was offered sociology instead. Because of my interests in business, I did a minor in management and realised to my shock that 30% of those in business school were foreigners – from Vietnam, China, Malaysia who don’t even understand business terms!
After a year, I lost interest in my course and just breezed through and scraped by with a basic pass degree. Although I admit this is my fault for not working hard and securing a comfortable government job like a few of my peers, but the whole idea is that the private sector is a completely different ball game.
When I graduated, I sent in hundreds of resume but only got two interviews. The reality for fresh graduates is that unless you have a law, accountancy or medicine degree where you have secured a training contract of some sort then you are safe. Civil service aside, the private sector is very unwilling to take on someone with a general degree with no experience.
In fact, I have been unemployed for 2 years after graduating and helping my mother in her restaurant. This has made me feel very inferior towards the S-pass holders from third-world countries! Eventually, I decided to put my diploma as my highest educational level and secured a part-time job as an accounts executive earning $1,200 a month with a local SME working about 20 hours a week.
I can tell you for a fact that the graduate employment surveys are bullshit! It is done on a voluntarily basis and only those who have secured jobs would have sufficient information to fill such as basic salary and so on. The reality is that the unemployed like myself are too ashamed to fill up the survey.
Even for those who do, what does 15% of FASS (faculty of arts and social science) graduates who are unemployed SIX months after graduation is no joke, considering the amount they spent on their education. I would personally estimate that around 30% of my peers are unemployed and another 30% are like me underemployed doing jobs like estate and insurance agents which do not even require degrees!
In my free time, I am also studying for an ACCA to enhance my future prospects after seeing how general degrees have no value in the job market while there are so many foreigners competing with us Singaporeans who have served NS.
Understand that you are busy with the elections now, but I would love to meet you after so that I am able to get some counselling from you. I find myself better off than most of the stories in our website and thank God for that, but I seriously hope that you can speak up for more of us.
Thanks,
FJ
Source: www.transitioning.org
SINGAPORE – The National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have both made a good showing in the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings published today (Oct 1).
As the only Asian university in the global top 30, NUS was crowned Asia’s top university – a first for NUS in the ranking’s 12-year history – while NTU scaled six spots to rank 55th globally in the 2015-2016 rankings.
The rankings are based on 13 separate performance indicators to reflect a university’s strengths in five areas: Teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook. It draws on data from 1,100 institutions, 11 million academic papers and more than 11,000 academic surveys to list the top 800 universities across 70 countries.
In the latest rankings, NUS was at 26th spot globally. In the previous 2014-2015 edition of the rankings, NUS ranked a spot higher at 25th place and was the second best Asian university, behind the University of Tokyo (ranked 23rd globally).
In the latest list, the University of Tokyo dropped to 43rd place, just behind China’s Peking University (ranked 42nd). After NUS, these were the next highest ranked Asian institutions.
Screenshot showing the scores of NTU and NUS in five areas.
Within the five areas that the universities were scored, NUS was placed in the top 10 in the area of international outlook, which considers a university’s international-to-domestic-student ratio, international-to-domestic-staff ratio and international collaboration. In the areas of teaching (the learning environment) and research (volume, income and reputation), NUS was in the top 30.
NTU was in the top 20 in the areas of industry income – an indicator for knowledge transfer activity – and international outlook. Neither university placed in the top 30 in the area of citations, which is the research influence indicator that looks at universities’ role in spreading new knowledge and ideas.
NUS President Professor Tan Chorh Chuan said: “We are pleased that NUS has been placed among the leading universities in the world and top in Asia.” He credited the university’s achievements to “strong support from the government, as well as commitment to excellence by our faculty, staff and students”.
Pointing to NTU’s leap to 13th place from 39th in the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings a fortnight ago, NTU President Professor Bertil Andersson said: “Although the two indices use different methodologies, they show one common trend – that NTU is on a rapid upward trajectory.” At the 55th spot, NTU has leaped 114 places on the Times Higher Education World University Rankings over the last four years.
“We will continue to work hard to be a leading global university that is academically and intellectually rigorous and vibrant, and one that serves the needs of Singapore and Singaporeans,” said Prof Andersson. Still, he noted that while rankings are useful for young universities like NTU as it allows them to be benchmarked with the best, “rankings do not shape our strategies”. “We are focused on our fundamentals – to create a world-class environment for learning, teaching and research,” he said.
Times Higher Education World University Rankings’ editor Phil Baty said NTU’s “consistent rise is particularly impressive” given the 13 rigorous performance indicators used for the rankings. “Singapore is one of the most exciting countries in global higher education at the moment, and NTU is at the heart of that,” he added.
On NUS, Mr Baty said its new position as Asia’s top university and among the very best of the world’s elite research universities is “thoroughly deserved”. “NUS has proven its strength in depth against the highest global standards,” he said.
Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings
Source: www.todayonline.com
Dear Editors,
Sharing with you the incident occurred yesterday morning. #agoodsamaritan Thank you for being the saviour of the day!! Earlier this morning despite on his off duty day, our own medical crew has stepped forward in rendering first aid for a road traffic accident casualty while awaiting for 995 ambulance to arrive.
Mr Abdillah whom is certified/trained in medical and emergencies offered his help to the casualty who was badly injured due to the accident. The casualty who was suffering from a dislocated right shoulder and a deep laceration cut on his left eye was found lying on the road near Selatar Link road this morning moaning in pain.
Mr Abdillah’s fast thinking act has improvised all the treatments by using a long sleeve shirt (given by a bangladeshi workers nearby) as a sling to support the arm, while a cloth to stop the profused bleeding.
Later, the casualty was conveyed to the hospital by the SCDF personnel.
We wish the casualty a speedy recovery!
Thank you once again Mr Abdillah – Founder of First Medic Training Services est 2013
Source: www.allsingaporestuff.com