A 63-year-old office cleaner at Suntec City, Madam Tay, was allegedly pressured and coerced by sales personnel atOpatra, a beauty salon also located at Suntec city, into spending a whopping S$13,180 on beauty products and equipment using “aggressive and unethical” sales tactics.
Madam Tay’s son, Lim TC, spoke to Mothership about the incident that happened on September 4, after Madam Tay finished her work shift.
Lim said that his mother was walking past Opatra when she was “aggressively” invited by their sales staff to come in and look at some products.
He said that there were 3 Opatra staff who were a part of this “aggressive and unethical sales tactic”, identifying them as (presumably):
- Employee (Malaysian Chinese)
- Manager (Malaysian chinese)
- Beautician (Filipino)
The staff allegedly bought food for his mother and gave her a complimentary facial.
They first convinced her to buy $1,180 worth of beauty products, which she paid for via two NETS payments.
They then convinced her again to buy another set of facial products and equipment costing S$12,000 in total, leading her to believe that the products were valuable to her (according to the police report that Lim filed), the items include:
- A facial scrub
- A body scrub
- A body butter
- A day cream
- a night cream
However, she could only use her debit card to pay $2,000.
Madam tay was then told to withdraw the remaining S$10,000 in cash.
Lim revealed that the staff even followed his mother to a DBS branch to withdraw the money, where a bank teller noticed the two women waiting and warned <adam tay about scams which target the elderly.
However, Madam Tay was “too confused” and eventually “caved in”.
Lim added that his mother was intimidated by their persistence and after 5 long hours of sales pitches from the staffs, she did what was told.
She then went home with the products that she bought and told her son about the whole incident that happened.
Lim then headed down to Opatra with his mother and girlfriend in tow on September 7 to confront the staff and demand a refund, the staff’s boss was also present at the meeting.
Opatra highlighted and insisted on their “no refund policy”, saying that Madam Tay was fully aware of her purchase.
Lim retorted, saying: “My mother is a low wage worker who is illiterate in English, she does not read or understand English furthermore understand the complicated fine print of their invoice.”
The staff’s boss told Lim that she wanted to settle the dispute outside of her company on another day, to which Lim then subsequently lodged a police report.
At the time of writing, the Opatra Singapore Facebook page has also been taken down.