A story appeared online of an elderly man in his 60s charged over a hundred dollars to “set up” the elderly man’s new phone at a handphone shop in People’s Park Complex.
The story was later reported by Shin Min Daily News, which revealed that the grandson of the man said that his grandfather had to pay an additional S$118 just to set up a Google Play account. (Google account to install applications).
The shop explained that they have services helping customers to install applications and charge between S$20 to S$30 to install an app. For a young person would find it ridiculous as it is just a few taps on the phone to get an app installed.
It is believed that many elderly have trouble with smartphones and often seek handphone shops to perform the services, the shop claimed that they would often advise their customers to seek help from their children instead of looking to the shop to perform the easy task.
The elderly man has since been refunded and the shop claims that it is only a misunderstanding. But many netizens doubt so.
One can only imagine how many other elderly people fall victim to such “service fees”. But again there might be many elderly who do not have young people at home or children to help them with.