B.Y. WEE, retired nurse:
“Last year, my friends and I decided to go on a holiday to Guilin.
“While window shopping for holiday packages on the Internet, we came across a travel agency that offered an all-inclusive four day-three night package to Gui-lin. It includes full board, flights and admission tickets to all attractions for RM750, on a twin-sharing basis.
“However, once we arrived in Guilin, we discovered that the terms of the packages were different. Full board was only for the first day.
“We ended up paying for our meals and admission fees for half of the attractions we visited.
“When we returned to Malaysia and tried to get a refund for the additional expenditure incurred from the agent, we were told that the terms and conditions of our package had changed and that we should have verified this before leaving for our holiday.
“The changes were never brought to our attention, but the agent told us that by departing for our holiday, we had accepted the new terms.
“The experience has since made us wary of purchasing holiday packages over the Internet.”
AS reported to the National Consumer Complaints Centre:
A foreign student studying in Malaysia recently emailed to the National Consumer Complaints Centre to complain about being victim of an online scam:
He bought a smartphone from a merchant via an online website for one-third of the original price of the phone.
A few months after he returned to his home country, he realised that the phone was faulty.
When he took it to the authorised agent to get it fixed, he was shocked to learn that the phone was a fake and they could not help him.
In another case, a consumer was offered a month-long trial at a slimming centre.
She had to put down her credit card details should she prefer to continue with the services. She decided to stop the treatment after the trial, but the centre still charged her RM500 for three months of treatment.
SHARIFAH ARFAH, writer:
“I was a regular customer of an online clothing store for women. It was a small enterprise, but I was happy with the products.
“However, after five months of good service, it all went pear-shaped. I ordered a pair of hijab from the store and discovered that part of my order was wrong.
“I received five hijab in patterns and colours that I had not selected, plus there was a huge palm-sized stain on one of them.
“When I contacted the store, I was told that the hijab I had selected were out of stock.
“When I asked them why they failed to inform me and decided to send hijab that I did not order instead, they told me to return the items.
“There was no apology or any offer to pay for the return postage of the items. It was the last time I purchased anything from that store.”