JURONG MOBILE SHOP SELLS 2ND-HAND SONY PHONE AS NEW, ALWAYS CHECK BEFORE PAYING

Dear ASS Editors,

Just this Sunday, i went with my brother to look for a brand new Sony M5 at Edge Comms at Jurong West St51. The shop was the biggest at my neighborhood and has been operating since 2010 and my family purchased our phones from them several times. We inquired the staff whether do they sell brand new SonyM5 and they said yes. My brother asked how is the phone like and the pointed at a glass cabinet with the Sony M5 box displayed, indicating that it is a brand new local set.

The price was quite good so nonetheless my brother decided to get it. The staff took the box out from the cabinet and opened it for us. My brother looked at the phone and when he wanted to try it, the staff said that there is no battery so he has to charge it first. Although it seems weird as usually all brand new phone set comes with a battery that is half full but we didn't pay much attention as we thought that maybe Sony phone is much different (P.s. our whole family uses Samsung). After charging it for awhile, he passed us the phone and seek our permission to remove the plastic film on the phone, which we did gave him the consent. My brother looked at it for awhile and decided to proceed with the payment and left the shop.

After leaving the shop for a minute, i was curious with the functionality and played with the camera.It was then my brother noticed that there were photos inside the album and he took the phone to see what is it. When he opened the album, there are at least 200 photos inside the phone, with the latest photo taken from 30 December 2015. We were astonished and began scrolling the album. It seems the first photo dated 14 December 2015. Thinking that this is a scam, we head back to the shop and asked for an explanation. The other staff attended to us instead and he said that this phone is sold to them by somebody else when they recontract their plan. So i asked them why are there photos, he said that perhaps the previous owner tested it for awhile before selling it to them. I further questioned him why are the photos dated from 14 December to 30 December he said that it could be due to the fact that it was linked to his gmail account. I didn't accept this answer and i further asked him how did they know that this phone is new. And their explanation is that, the accessories aren't used and it looks new so they sell it as a brand new set and they even told me that sometimes the purchase receipt is missing and they can't do much about that.

Dear readers let me ask you all something, do you think it is acceptable to market a phone off as a brand new without even bothering to validate is it brand new or used. This phone was clearly used and they didn't bother to switch it on or check at the very least. All they want is to make profit by deceiving customers, i don't think it is possible for them to not even test it out first before selling. To makes things worse, i asked them about other display sets and he told me that they don't have the leisure time to check all of it. So to keep things simple, a phone is marked up when the accessories aren't used and the box is still available. While explaining, the staff gives us the can't be bothered attitude and brushed us off by giving as a refund.

P.s. While we were waiting for the phone to be charged, a customer walked in with his girlfriend to change their screen protector. The staff took a protector from the rack and "threw" the packaging away in the bin. After the customer left, he picked the packaging up again from the bin and stack it up along with other packaging.

Pls do us justice and stop those Jover Chew wannabe from cheating us consumers again.

DC
A.S.S. Contributor