Friday, February 02, 2007
Clever but Unethical Sales Practices
There is just still too much of this in Singapore today. I liken this situation to software piracy and recent comments by Tarun Sawney, director of the BSA’s antipiracy activities in Asia-Pacific, reported by CSO. (26 Oct 2006).
" Do you see Singapore as a first-world nation or a typical Asian nation"
It is largely a cultural issue, and yesterday I had a bad taste of it when buying a Chinese language Software.
Having gone through that experience, I must add that aside from protecting businesses from IP losses, consumers too have to be protected against unscrupulous IP creators...those that can make their stuff looks good in demos, or on paper, but cannot assure performance or service.
Of course one could argue. " let the buyers beware" ...but there must be a limit to this.
Most first world countries have cooling off periods for purchases...one can easily return products that prove unsatisfactory... definitely not so everywhere. Take my case for example,
I purchased a Chinese Word Processing software(or what I told in was), called “Chinese Doctor”, from the famed Sim Lim Square in Singapore. The label said that the software had could create a Chinese document by inputting text whether in English or pinyin which suited me fine. There was also a good translator in case I receive a Chinese Document. ..or needed to input in English. The demo was good so I purchased it to explore it further...knowing its hard to see all at a demo.
To cut the story short, things did not go so well when I tried using it at home.... and of course I was refused a refund when I tried returning the stuff. "Many people have used this, its even loaded on all the computers here, so its the fault of your system not ours"
When I send the package to for evaluation by someone who knew better, I found that:
1. The Chinese Doctor was merely a writing program, not as claimed on the packaging, literature and sales presentation. You could use your mouse or mouse pad to write a Chinese word and it appear on your document(Clever) But not useful for me as I have explained that I could not write Chinese.
2. He demonstrated inputting PinYIN which I needed but was relying on the Microsoft’s build-in capability without telling me this(Clever and deceitful).
3. Even worse he demonstrated a number of other inputting features that I needed....by making use of the existing word processing program in my computer (Clever and totally deceitful)
4. The dictionary was a standard shelf software called TranStar which was not integrated at all with the Doctor. Even worse I think the copy is a fake, as I saw a piece of the original which looked quite different.(criminal in most cases, but I guess being a Chinese software, its not)
What I went through was not only deceitful demo with the sole objective to sell, without any regard to customers real needs or for any ethical or moral considerations.... the facts provided on the packaging were all lies and untruths.
And I dare say..."UNFORTUNATELY, this happen quite a bit out in Asia"
" Do you see Singapore as a first-world nation or a typical Asian nation"
It is largely a cultural issue, and yesterday I had a bad taste of it when buying a Chinese language Software.
Having gone through that experience, I must add that aside from protecting businesses from IP losses, consumers too have to be protected against unscrupulous IP creators...those that can make their stuff looks good in demos, or on paper, but cannot assure performance or service.
Of course one could argue. " let the buyers beware" ...but there must be a limit to this.
Most first world countries have cooling off periods for purchases...one can easily return products that prove unsatisfactory... definitely not so everywhere. Take my case for example,
I purchased a Chinese Word Processing software(or what I told in was), called “Chinese Doctor”, from the famed Sim Lim Square in Singapore. The label said that the software had could create a Chinese document by inputting text whether in English or pinyin which suited me fine. There was also a good translator in case I receive a Chinese Document. ..or needed to input in English. The demo was good so I purchased it to explore it further...knowing its hard to see all at a demo.
To cut the story short, things did not go so well when I tried using it at home.... and of course I was refused a refund when I tried returning the stuff. "Many people have used this, its even loaded on all the computers here, so its the fault of your system not ours"
When I send the package to for evaluation by someone who knew better, I found that:
1. The Chinese Doctor was merely a writing program, not as claimed on the packaging, literature and sales presentation. You could use your mouse or mouse pad to write a Chinese word and it appear on your document(Clever) But not useful for me as I have explained that I could not write Chinese.
2. He demonstrated inputting PinYIN which I needed but was relying on the Microsoft’s build-in capability without telling me this(Clever and deceitful).
3. Even worse he demonstrated a number of other inputting features that I needed....by making use of the existing word processing program in my computer (Clever and totally deceitful)
4. The dictionary was a standard shelf software called TranStar which was not integrated at all with the Doctor. Even worse I think the copy is a fake, as I saw a piece of the original which looked quite different.(criminal in most cases, but I guess being a Chinese software, its not)
What I went through was not only deceitful demo with the sole objective to sell, without any regard to customers real needs or for any ethical or moral considerations.... the facts provided on the packaging were all lies and untruths.
And I dare say..."UNFORTUNATELY, this happen quite a bit out in Asia"
Comments:
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very useful article. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did you guys learn that some chinese hacker had hacked twitter yesterday again.
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: 10:44 AM
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