The good and the bad…

It takes all kinds to make the world – there are the good and unfortunately, there are also the bad. Let’s look at some of the people around us, for instance. Some are very kind, honest and very generous while others may lie through their teeth to get us to buy whatever they are selling. Don’t we know them all?

These days, many people shop online and I am no exception. I did make a number of purchases that went perfectly well like here, here or here and in that last post, I mentioned how I bought those 4XL t-shirts and what I got in the end were way too small for me and I could not use them at all.

Well, the other day, I shared a photo of these pek guek tong chiew peah (8th Month Mid-Autumn Festival biscuits)…

…our traditional Foochow Mooncake Festival biscuits that I had bought, on Facebook and grumbled away that they had increased the price by 50 sen to RM6.50 this year. I did buy the last 3 packs from last year…

…in January for only RM6.00 each.

My cousin in Kuching said that she bought it online, never mind the price since she was craving for it. Obviously she had to pay a lot more than what I had to fork out for mine. Unfortunately, when her order came, this…

…was what she received.

I do know this Sarikei brand, same as the aforementioned, very well and I do enjoy some of their products that are very well-marketed and well-distributed. In fact, they were available in Kuching too but when they told me that some years back and I saw some photographs of the ones at some shops in Padungan, I told them not to bother as they did not MENGANDUNGI LEMAK BABI (contain pork fat). I did buy it myself before, probably by mistake, and I found that it was rather hard, not nice and crumbly and sweeter plus it did not have that lard fragrance so of course, I never bought it again.

The thing was this…

…was what the seller displayed for all to see. Anyone would be able to tell from the double happiness character(s) in the middle that this was a different brand altogether and the seller had excluded the top part of the pack with the brand name from the photograph and in the pack that my cousin received, the phrase MENGANDUNGI LEMAK BABI wasn’t there plus it was not in the list of ingredients either.

To give her the benefit of the doubt, however, perhaps she is one of those who are not really familiar with these things and since they are from the same place (Sarikei) and the price tag is exactly the same, when one is not available, the other one will do. The packaging looks quite similar even!

Of course, my cousin was pissed off by this whole episode and actually, she said she paid double of what I paid for mine. I guess that 9.9 was the price – the seller sure makes a lot for every pack sold – and with the postal/delivery charges, the total was a lot more than that. I think my cousin did make a complaint to the online shopping website concerned – I hope they will blacklist the seller. If you want to go into business, the onus is on you to know your stuff and make customer satisfaction your priority. It’s not all about making money, lots of it! The likes of these sure give online shopping a bad name!!!

Well, if anyone around here is keen on buying the made-in-Sarikei ones that I like…

…they are available at the shop in the next lane from my house or at this bakery in town. Do be on the alert, however, and check before buying because I did notice then, dunno now, that for reasons unknown, there were two varieties (same brand) sold at the bakery – one with lard and the other without.

Kim Won Chinese Medical Store and Mini-supermarket is located on the left of the block of shops to the right along Jalan Ruby, with Swee Hung (2.316161, 111.840441) and the Bethel Hair Salon at the other end on the right.