Zit Seng's Superwall » shopping

Horrors of Online Banking

Zit Seng — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 01:23:00 +0000

At the risk of sounding like I’m technophobic, distrustful of the Internet, and terrified of online money transactions… I am indeed starting to find online banking and online payments rather worrisome to some extent. It’s not that I’m afraid of online banking or online payments. I’ve been living on the Internet for long enough, I’ve done banking online and shopped online for some time. But a couple of bad experiences this year has got me thinking that some of these systems are really screwed up.

You’d expect things to get better over time, particularly since online banking and online payments are getting quite common-place. But silly things still happen from time to time.

First, it is a letter I received from M1 informing me that a certain credit card payment I had made has failed. Well… as an IT person myself, I can understand things break now and then. Except that in this case, it was about a payment in mid-October 2010, and this letter informing me about the payment problem was dated end-February 2011. So I called M1 to enquire, and they confirmed that it was that payment over 4 months ago that failed.

You know, the whole idea of online banking and online payments is about instant real-time transactions. It seemed so incredulous that M1 would inform about a payment failure over 4 months late. I quizzed the customer service representative for more details… like how could this be possible, how is it that M1′s subsequent bill confirmed payment was received, and those for the following months did not state any monies owed to them. But all they can tell me is that, well, the system only just reported that the payment failed. They insisted that I call my bank to confirm that the payment did not go through. (Why is it always the customer who has to chase down these problems?) Fine, though completely unsatisfied, I considered the episode closed.

Then in mid-March 2011, I received my usual M1 bill, and found two payment reversals. Okay, I called M1 again. I was told again for some strange reason my February bill payment failed. Again, they insisted I should contact my bank. I decided to settle the outstanding amount on the phone, hung up, then checked my bank statements. To my surprise, the February payment was indeed debited from my bank! So, I called M1 again. After much checking, they explained that the problem wasn’t with the February payment, but that my mid-October 2010 payment had failed twice, hence they needed to reverse twice!

My goodness! This is now a payment that is like 5 months old. Why is this so obfuscated?

This time the customer service representative tried to explain the situation by suggesting that the problem was with my bank’s internet banking portal. Ha! I retorted that I had always been paying directly on M1′s own website. Whatever “system problems” there are, it is really with M1 themselves… don’t try to push the blame to some other bank.

Can you just imagine the payment situation. You make a payment online. The online system accepts and confirms payment. Your subsequent bill also confirms the payment has been made. Then, 4 – 5 months later, you are told the payment failed?

Hello… online payment system that takes 4 – 5 months to realize that a previous transaction it had already accepted and acknowledged actually didn’t occur?

Okay, how about another problem.

I made a credit card payment with a US merchant. They are primarily a B2B type of business, so they didn’t actually have an online payment portal. They just process credit-card transactions manually. Well, my payment was declined. Rather embarrassing. The message on the merchant’s credit card terminal said that I (card holder) needed to call the bank to “confirm the charge”. Fine. I called my bank. My bank told me the transaction was declined, because the card processing system was down for maintenance daily from 3am to 3:30am (Singapore time). Okay, I told them, now that I tell you this charge is valid, can you just go ahead and process the charge, like what the message on the merchant’s credit card terminal said? No luck. My bank says the transaction has been declined, and it’s final. They tell me to not make credit card payments from 3am to 3:30am (Singapore time).

I was super surprised. In this day and age, everyone carries credit cards, people travel the world, people make payments any time day and night. Not so much that I want to pay at 3am, but it could well be 3pm in, say, New York. What if I have a train to catch and needed to urgently pay for a train ticket?

This reminds me of a certain local bank whose ATM machines used not to dispense cash at a certain time of the night (or rather, wee hours of the morning). I don’t know if it is still the case. This might not be so bad, since, after all you could reason that the likelihood of an ATM withdrawal at, say, 3am is quite unlikely. But hey, credit card payments can happen from anywhere in the world!

Anyway, moving on, again another issue with credit card payment. (Actually it is the same merchant and same bank as above.) So, recall, this is an overseas B2B company. I pay for $X sum, bank sends an SMS to notify payment charged to my card for $Y sum. Y was less than X, just a little, and I assumed that perhaps the merchant subequently applied a small discount, possibly due to adjusted shipping rate when the order was finally processed. I paid little attention to it, until I saw my credit card statement that $X was charged. Hmm. I checked my SMS again, it really did say $Y.

Obviously, this certain local bank (alright, it’s UOB) has got some problems with their credit card system. ($X and $Y were specified in US$, so it is not a problem of currency conversion.)

There’s more, but I won’t talk about them here. The point is this. I’ve been banking online, paying bills online, etc. Things have worked pretty well in the past. But nowadays, problems are starting to show up. Is it the pressure of making everything online that is driving systems to be build faster than they can be properly designed and tested?

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A Tag Heuer Fingerprint On Display

Zit Seng — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:15:55 +0000

You’d have expected that an upmarket retail shop like that of Tag Heuer would be a picture of perfection. Neat, pristine and clean. Especially in a display cabinet which is not exposed to dust, fingers, and other sorts of intrusions. Yet, as I walked past, something just caught my eye: a smudgy fingerprint on a mobile phone in the display! Somehow, it stood out so clearly under the intense halogen lights. It almost seems like the fingerprint was planted on purpose, as if it were in fact part of the display.

Except that it probably wan’t meant to be part of the display. I guess the cleaning crew need to be more careful in future. Particularly since, ahem, the fingerprint would clearly identify the culprit of this misdemeanor.

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Electronic Payments Not For All Merchants

Zit Seng — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:35:49 +0000

Here’s what a merchant did with his EZ-Link payment terminal: Shelved neatly inside a glass display. Nice to look at, but not to be used. I’m guessing this merchant doesn’t want to use it at all.

There are certainly some benefits of electronic payment systems, but clearly they are not for everyone. I imagine that this EZ-Link system was provided free-of-charge to this merchant, so there are no overheads and per-transaction costs involved, but yet he’s reluctant to use it.

I think some parties are a bit too aggressive about deployment of these cash-equivalent payment systems. EZ-Link boasts 5000 merchants, twice that of NETS. I suppose EZ-Link’s numbers include these merchants who are given the terminals but who don’t use them. Perhaps their numbers are also made up by all the SBS Transit and SMRT buses.

There are places suitable for these electronic payment modes, but they aren’t suitable for all kinds of merchants out there.

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Supermarket Trolley Carts

Zit Seng — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:12:59 +0000

I was at Cold Storage yesterday to pick up a few items, and a new gadget there caught my attention. It’s “Futurecart”. It has a LCD screen mounted at the end of the cart. That’s nothing terribly futuristic about it, but it is certainly an evolutionary development of the same old supermarket trolley carts that have served us for decades.

The new trolleys, which is known under the brand name Futurecart, feature a LCD screen which displays promotional information and targeted advertisements, which may depend on where the trolley is positioned within the supermarket. The technology it uses is nothing revolutionary. A small embedded computer with battery packs and LCD screen mounted in the trolley, wireless positioning sensors around the supermarket (RFID in the case of Futurecart), and possibly some wireless data networking capabilities.

I’m a little doubtful about how well these technology will pay off in its current form. I found myself sufficiently absorbed with my shopping errand to actually pay any attention to the LCD screen, apart from taking a photo and the initial interest in the new gadget as I pushed off the trolley.

Perhaps the system might be more useful if it could interact with the shopper. For example, a bar code scanner to scan prices of items. Or just to scan the item, so that the system could display more information about the item, or a list of comparable items, etc. Or how about a navigation system to help you find items in the supermarket.

Or stream Barney videos to keep the kids entertained. Vanessa, for example, was quite engrossed with what the LCD screen was showing. (She hadn’t noticed it was there initially…)

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Jacket For $20

Zit Seng — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:16:00 +0000

Fancy a jacket for $20? It’s a casual jacket I got from a Samuel & Kevin sale during my Lunar New Year shopping spree. Nothing terribly spectacular about it, but for $20, it’s still a bargain. In fact, I found myself jostling with so many other people at the wagon that day. Everyone was rummaging through the clothes to find the right size. Yes, as you can imagine, at these sort of sales, it’s usually mostly the extreme sizes (i.e. XL or XS) that are left.

I dress quite casually to work. My work environment permits it. Casual for me means T-shirt and jeans. But occasionally it would be appropriate to dress not so casually for a particular meeting or something. In those instances, donning a casual jacket like this seems to work quite nicely. It goes well with jeans or khaki pants, so it’s easy for me to mix-and-match items to go from casual look to “smart” look.

The other item for my new year’s wardrobe is this destroyed jeans from Fox Men. It has a nice soft denim material that’s very comfortable. The “tears” in the denim look quite real and natural, and overall an excellent seasoned look. It’s my first jeans from Fox, and I think I can consider more of it for my wardrobe in future. Yes, I bought it during a sale again of course. Yeah, you might have noticed I usually don’t buy anything unless there is some sale or promotion. Many “nice” clothing are too expensive when you’ve got to pay the full retail price.

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Shoes For The New Year

Zit Seng — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:44:23 +0000

I did quite a bit of last minute shopping in preparing for this Lunar New Year. For example, I only got my shoes one or two days before. It was a pair of Converse shoes. I also got Converse the last year. I thought the shoes look good, reasonably comfortable, and with all the promotional sales discount, where quite fairly priced too. Not sure how long I’d stick with Converse though, because all their shoes seem to be similarly styled. Oh well, pick any brand, the same is probably true too. So now and then we’ve got to brand-hop.

I went shopping with baby Vanessa. We went to Bugis Junction. I was thinking nowadays Bugis is probably the not-so-happening shopping place anymore. I was quite wrong. It was still overflowing with crowds. I peeked in Top Shop for a few moments before heading out again, because I saw that the queue to pay was too long. No point to start browsing, want to buy something, and then get stuck in line for eons.

The signs for recession and economic gloom is definitely not evident in the pre-Lunar New Year shopping. Or perhaps that is the sign: everyone’s shopping for the bargains during this festive sales promotions. At Samuel and Kevin, everyone (including me) was crowding around jackets that were going for just $20. They were just casual jackets, not an expensive suit of blazer, but certainly worth well more than $20.

I think, after the Lunar New Year, there’s going to be even more bargains with shops trying to clear their unsold stock. No need to buy everything before the new year. Do some of the shopping after the new year!

A funny thing about Vanessa. She doesn’t like Samuel and Kevin. She cried in the shop. She’s okay elsewhere… even in IPZone (which is the same chain eh). The first time round, she was comforted when I picked her up and headed out. I came back later, and she cried again.

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I Want This For Christmas

Zit Seng — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:35:41 +0000

Yeah, I know it is already the new year, but I’m still catching up with things I’ve been wanting to past for the last couple of weeks. Things like the big bunch of baby Vanessa photos that have stayed in my phone for too long. Can you believe it, my N95 8GB crashed while importing the photos to my Mac this morning? My phone must be protesting at all the extra work heaped on it over the festive season.

Anyway, back to baby Vanessa. The photo at the top is of her recent shopping trip to Takashimaya shopping centre. She was at the baby section making her rounds to examine everything that tickles her fancy. See how she looks at people as if to say “Please can I have this?”

Then look at Vanessa eyeing the set of bowls in the next photo. Looks like she really wants the bowls eh. Must be complaining that her bowls at home are too small, cannot contain a big enough serving for her appetite.

Oh yeah, when we eat out, she needs to have her own bowl. In the past, it was because we wanted her to have her own bowl to contain a smaller serving so that hot foods can cool down faster. Nowadays, Vanessa herself wants her own bowl. When she sits down at the table, she’ll point at the empty space in front of her to signal that a bowl (or plate) and a set of utensils needs to be placed there.

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Comex 2008 Excursion Report

Zit Seng — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:58:36 +0000

This is the second day of Comex, and the first time in a long while since I’ve visited a computer fair of this sort. They are just too crowded for my liking. So today’s excursion to Comex was like discovery of a new shopping experience. Like a small kid going to the zoo for the first time. Oh okay, not quite the same thing.

The thing is that for the longest time, I hated going to these exhibitions. It’s not just the crowds in the place itself, but also all the overcrowding and congestion around the venue as well. In fact, if there is a PC show in Suntec, I am going to avoid the entire Marina area. Have you noticed that some of these events have to advertise the “width of their walkways” as an attraction? You know then that the congestion is a serious problem. But still, try as they might to broaden the walkways on the exhibition floor, the place is still congested.

Unless, I tell myself, if I have something specific in mind to buy or to check out. So like today, I did want to look for an external hard disk. Thinking Friday after lunch shouldn’t be too bad, me, my wife and baby Vanessa headed down to Suntec at about 2pm. Well, basically car parks were all full. Yah, the electronic signboards said Suntec had 29 free lots, but there was a super long queue getting into the car park anyway. The only other place with free lots was the Singapore Fyler. Too far.

Well, we tried something slightly mischievous. We headed over to Conrad for the valet parking. They had a sign “car park closed” blocking off the driveway. We told them we were going to have high tea in Oscars. Ok, they let us through. We hung around outside Oscars for a few moments to get our barang barang organized. Of course we did not have high tea. This excursion was to Comex, not to have high tea. (Okay, we did go over to Oscars for dinner in the evening. So we were indeed guests of the hotel.)

Suntec was quite expectedly very crowded. People everywhere. Comex was on levels 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6, although seriously the only thing I saw on level 1 was some Canon signages, but I have no idea what they were doing there. SingTel had their iPhone 3G thingy in the ballrooms on level 2. Sony was on level 3. The more up-market vendors were in level 4, and the more budget conscious vendors were on level 6.

I came to Comex for 2 things: USB/firewire external hard disk, and checkout StarHub to re-contract cable/broadband. I got the Maxtor One Touch 4 Plus at a pretty good price. It was $309 (or was it $319) for the Maxtour One Tocu h4 Plus 1TB version from Sim Lim Square the last weekend, but just $239 at Comex (seen at Skylet, Challenger, and other booths).

But I was utterly disappointed with StarHub. It seems they had no deals at all for existing cable TV subscribers. I sought help from the promotors, but they confirmed that they are mainly targeting new customers in Comex.

We did end up buying something that we had not set out to do. A shiny new Nokia E66 mobile phone from M1. Quite good price too. $298 for 2-year contract (compared with $368 for the so-called “Online Exclusive” from M1 Shop).

All in all, we spent about 3+ hours, although we did break midway for an errand. This is Vanessa’s first visit to any computer fair… and she fell asleep halfway despite all the noise. I guess she’s tired, or bored.

This excursion to Comex has reaffirmed my thoughts on visiting computer fairs: Avoid, unless you really have something in mind to buy, or if you enjoy the close company of huge crowds.

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Pre-Comex Shopping

Zit Seng — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:32:22 +0000

Another item I acquired during my pre-Comex shopping trip last weekend is this notebook cooler pad. It has two fans, is slightly elevated at the back so that it is tilted forward, and it emits a cool blue hue when it’s running. I know, these things are quite common and indeed I’ve seen them many times, but this is only the second notebook cooler pad that I’ve purchased, so it is still cool to me.

I also bought a Maxtor One Touch 4 external disk drive last weekend, which I’m now regretting because it is so much cheaper at Comex. Yes, today is day 2 of Comex, and the first time in a long while since I visited a computer fair.

There was also the Logitech mouse which I mentioned previously. Yeah, I know, why did I go shopping when there is Comex coming up? Well, actually it started off having the need to replace a dying hard disk. The original plan was to buy a new hard disk, just a simple internal IDE hard disk, but I somehow ended up buying an external USB hard disk. One thing led to another.

But I still did go to Comex, which I will blog about later.

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Logitech V320 Cordless Optical Mouse

Zit Seng — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:50:14 +0000

I know Comex starts today, but I somehow ended up at Sim Lim Square last weekend and did some pre-Comex shopping. I bought a bunch of things, including this Logitech V320 cordless optical mouse to use with my notebook at home. Nowadays, everything needs to go wireless. How nice if wireless power can come soon.

So I got this Logitech V320 mouse, I thought I’d share a few things about it. It’s cordless, but not bluetooth, so it has to pair with its own wireless receiver dongle. The dongle is a hassle. Bluetooth is nice, but not always the right thing. I was actually tempted to go for the bluetooth version, but bluetooth is a bit messy when you want to swap the mouse around between 2 or more notebooks that all happen to be on at the same time. Which notebook should the mouse talk to? I ran into this problem when I paired my Jabra JX10 with my MacBook. I thought it was cool, until it got confused when my Nokia N95 8GB (which had also been paired with it) was in range. So the dongle does have its usefulness.

The mouse has a bay to insert the dongle, so it’s not like it will be too easily misplaced anyway when not in use. When you insert the dongle into the bay, the mouse switches off. There’s also a separate on/off switch beneath the mouse.

This is a two button mouse with a scroll wheel. The scroll wheel can also be pushed left and right to do left/right scrolling. Not quite the same 360-degree scrolling that the Apple MIghty Mouse can do.

Generally the mouse has a nice feel. The sides have a rubbery touch. It’s slightly smallish (i.e. not full sized) in order to be more portable. I’d prefer a full sized mouse for extended use though. Afterall, the slightly diminished size doesn’t really make much difference in storage/carrying space.

For extended use, somehow I find that the tip of my ring finger started to get sore against the rubbery side. The tracking/accuracy of the mouse is not fantastic, but passable for general use. (Those $20 wireless mice are much worse, but of course, this one is like $60+ so it ought to be better.)

Overall, I don’t think it is fantastic enough that I’d go for it again if I wanted another wireless mouse. The Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse would be more highly recommended.

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