First Bad Impression

On Wednesday one of my friend wanted to buy a digital camera, so another friend and I accompanied him to YongSan, a centre for electrical items.

Frankly I didn't quite agree with him buying it at this time because none of them actually planned to get a digital camera while in Malaysia. But because a few others of our friend got it, he also wanted one. He was telling me that the budget will be enough. I can't quite argue with him on that because he'll be "puasa"ing next month and will be cutting quite a huge amount on food.

Anyway, the three of us went to Yongsan and have a look. We entered a camera shop and started enquiring about the digital cameras. The guy whom we talked to was quite nice, telling us the function and explaining it to us the best he can using korean, english and some sign language.

After looking at a few cameras my friend chosed one which he liked best. So he wanted to go to an ATM machine and withdraw money. As we know not where the nearest AT machine was, the man "kindly" accompanied us to it.

Coming back to the shop and paying the money, another guy from the shop suddenly talked to the person whom we were dealing with in Korean. (Looking back know we know that he was "hasuting" the man) . So the guy quickly brought a few other cameras and begin to tell us how much better those cameras are compared to the one my friend just bought and that he's willing to give us a good deal considering that we're students.

We were really confused and I began to feel suspicious. But not being able to understand fully what the man said, I decided to let my friend make his own decision. And after giving it much thinking my friend decided to buy one of those cameras, which the man told us was 6 mega pixels and other advantages. So he went to withdraw some more money and paid the bill.

After coming out of the shop, the other friend and I felt really suspicious. Fearing that our friend might have been cheated, and thinking that the shops around there might somehow be linked, the two of us drop by at a few other shops far away from the one which my friend bought the camera and began to enquire the price for the exact camera.

Alas! Our poor friend really got cheated by nearly RM 600 and the camera had only 3 mega pixels. Not knowing what to do, we tried telephoning a few people, seniors, friends, lecturer, but to no avail. The only way was to wait till the next day when our lecturer was able to accompany us back to the shop.

So on Thursday, Mr Ham , one of our lecturer, accompanied my friend back to the shop. I followed as well to keep my friend company and in-case they need any witness.

So in the end after about an hour plus of dealing with the shop owner (who told us the camera had 3 years warranty compared to others which only had 1 year and that's why it was more expensive) and going to the managment of that building, our lecturer manage to get a 128MB XD memory card for my friend.

It really reminds me of Petaling Street where I saw lots of foreigners being cheated. Now it's our turn being cheated as a foreigner.

To all those who are else where overseas, may this be a reminder to be more careful. Check out the price and details of things in through the internet before purchasing them.