Singaporean man raises fund to support Vietnamese victim cheated by local store

November 06, 2014 | 09:13

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A Singaporean citizen, Gabriel Kang, has recently urged the local people to donate money to help Pham Van Thoai, a Vietnamese tourist who had been cheated when buying an iPhone 6 at a store in Singapore, and has succeeded in doing so.

The main purpose of Kang is to raise funds to buy a brand new iPhone 6 to send to Thoai as a gift to say apology to him on behalf of the people of Singapore, and express the hospitality of the people of the Southeast Asian city-state, according to his project posted on www.indiegogo.com/projects.

Gabriel said if the money he collected from the local community is greater than the value of the iPhone, then he would buy a few small gifts for Thoai.

As of 10:30 pm (local time), the money Kang raised has amounted to over US$7,300, while the initial target he set was just $1,350, which was fulfilled just within an hour. Kang’s fundraising campaign will last for eight more days.

Kang said he had already buy a gray iPhone 6 worth S$1,288 to send to Vietnam for Thoai, and also made a video clip recording the process of paying the bill for the smartphone online.

“My name is Gabriel and I work in a small local tech startup. I am a Singaporean who is neither rich nor poor and I do not seek to profit directly or indirectly from the results of this campaign,” he said on the website.

“I seek no recognition and have no political affiliations, goals nor ambitions. I also have no affiliations to the police, tourism board, or any other government organization.”

According to Channel NewsAsia, Mobile Air had 18 complaints lodged against them in teh first 10 months of this year.

Pham Van Thoai has recently come to Singapore for a holiday with his girlfriend and decided to pays S$950 to buy an iphone 6 as a birthday gift for his girlfriend. The purchase is equivalent to 5 months of Thoai’s salary as a factory worker.

“The retailer, Mobile Air Pte Ltd, made him sign some worded invoice in English, (a language Thoai barely understands), and then they stopped him and forced him to pay an additional S$1500 for a bogus 1-year warranty before they would allow him to leave with what he believed he had purchased,” Kang said on the website.

“The retailer, then "generously" offered to refund S$600 but as this would mean that two whole months of salary would be stolen from him, he refused. He then goes down on his knees and begs them to refund the rest of his money while the staff at the outlet laughed at him.”

“So the police and consumer association of Singapore were called in, their 14th incident since July 2014, and are only able to recoup S$400 for him.”

“Therefore, he leaves the shop with his girlfriend S$550 poorer, with no Iphone 6, in tears, sore knees and his dream holiday now shattered.”

“This is not "ok", this is not right. We are not a nation of thieves and cheats. This kind of scam should not be allowed to continue here, much less prosper like it has.”(The first 2 floors of Sim Lim Square are notorious for scams like these over the last 5 years or more)”