Movement for change Singapore companies should learn to be fair to customers
I do not like the way that many organizations do their business in Singapore. They abuse their monopolistic position to impose high cost to their customers and adopt questionable practices to place a ransom on their customers. 

I like to share this example. 

Many years ago, I decided to buy domain names ending in "sg" as it was supposed to convey a brand that sg has high integrity. I found that the annual cost of a "sg" domain was $60 compared to $10 for a "com" domain. It was expensive, but I paid the price for it. I wanted to support "sg".

I learned that the "sg" domain could only be bought from some registrars. This was troublesome, as most of my "com" domains were registered with Namecheap registrar. Never mind. I could manage two registrars, or so I thought.

Recently, my wisdomofthecrowd.sg domain failed to respond. My developer investigated and found that the domain had expired. I was not notified about the renewal date. 

I logged into the registrar website and found that the domain has been taken over by the registrar. It did not give me an option to buy back the domain. I got a nasty feeling that the registrar wanted to impose a high ransom price for me to get back the domain. If this was the case, it was a highly questionable practice!

I decided to transfer the website to tklcloud.com. I already paid for this domain, which hosted about 50 working websites and cost me $10 a year. There was no additional cost to move the wisdomofthecrowd website to it. Furthermore, this registrar allowed me to auto-renew the domain, so I do not face the risk of its expiry.

It did take some trouble to move the website, but my developer did it within a day.

Later, another developer told me that I can buy back the "sg" domain for an annual fee of $60. It seemed that the registrar was now willing to release the domain that they had confiscated. 

As I had already moved the website to "tklcloud.com", I did not want to move back to "sg". This registrar has lost a customer due to their unfair and shady practices.

I do not want to lodge a complaint because I am now used to bad business practices by Singapore companies. Furthermore, they will probably ignore my complaint, giving all kinds of excuses. 

I have a bad impression of the practices of many Singapore companies. This is just one more to add to my distrust.  Sadly, this represent the majority of the companies.

I must say, in all fairness, that some Singapore companies have good practices. I highlight them when I have the opportunity to do so. 

If Singapore companies continue to take advantage of their customers and impose high charges and fees, the future for Singapore will be bleak. The govt has the duty to recognize this problem and to rectify it.

The reputation of Singapore companies has now become quite bad to people who have the bad experience with them. If this matter is not rectified, it will get worse. Maybe, it has gone to the point of no return?

Tan Kin Lian

Vote - do you agree with my statement that many Singapore companies impose high charges and take advantage of their customers?

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