Consumer Protection and Fair Practices Act

This Act is administered by the Consumer Association of Singapore. Some bad business practices may be disallowed under the Act, e.g. forfeiture of life membership of gym. Read the legislation here:
http://www.case.org.sg/cpfta.htm

Read the details of the unfair practices here.

Here is a specific practice that may be relevant to the gym membership:

11  Taking advantage of a consumer by including in a consumer agreement terms or conditions that are harsh, oppressive or excessively one-sided so as to be unconscionable       Bullying a consumer by using oppressive terms in the sales contract       Example:       Consumer signed agreement for some renovation works. Consumer changed his mind the next day and was willing to compensate contractor on any cost incurred. Renovation company insisted that consumer must pay a termination charge equivalent to 80% of the total renovation sum as stipulated in the agreement

Distribution cost

A consumer came to see me about her investment. She wanted to invest her salary for retirement. A financial adviser sold her an investment plan. Later, she learned that it was a life insurance policy. She did not realise that the benefit illustration contained a number called "distribution cost". This was defined to be the expenses of the insurance company.

As the monthly savings is large, the distribution cost amounted to $40,000. The financial adviser did not explain that this amount is taken from her savings to pay commission and expenses of the company. The consumer realised it after contributing for 18 months (as the charge is only shown after 18 months). By that time, it was too late for her to stop the policy. Even if she terminated the policy, there is a surrender charge that takes away the balance of the distribution cost. It was a big shock to her - to lose so much of her savings - representing her hard earned saving for 18 months!

Many people bought a life insurance policy without knowing what the distribution cost really is. To learn about it, they should attend the FISCA talk on life insurance. Be aware, so that you do not lose so much money.

Dealing with the global crisis

I expect the global economies to go through a difficult time over the next two years. Many analysts and economists are worried about the debt crisis in USA and Europe and the slowdown of the economies in the advanced countries.

We should be prepared for a difficult time for the Singapore economy. We can expect more people to become unemployed.

If I were the Finance Minister, I would implement the following measures:

• Allow unemployed people to make monthly withdrawals from the CPF account. The amount should be sufficient to meet their monthly expenses. This can be for a period of 12 months and may be extended.
• If there is insufficient balance in the CPF ordinary account, allow negative balance to be accumulated (with interest at 2.5% per annum). The negative balance will be recouped from future contributions, when they find a job. If it remains negative at the time of retirement, it can be a charge on the property that has been purchased with CPF funds
• The monthly repayment of the mortgage loan can be deferred during the period of unemployment.

If the unemployed people are not required to sell their property during this distressed time, the property market need not collapse - which was what has led to the problem in the USA and Europe. 

Tan Kin Lian

Live streaming of talk on life insurance

This talk will be streamed live at 9 pm tonight (Friday 23 September).
http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2011/09/life-streaming-of-talk-get-value-for.html 

Teaching character and values in schools

 I welcome the decision by the Minister of Education to teach values and character in the school syllabus. This is an important lesson to be taught to your young people. It gives them the confidence and guidance on their future decisions.

I advocate teaching of the values of honesty, fairness, positive attitude, courage and public service. These are the values that have guided the important decisions in my life. With these values, I am confident of spending my mind on many issues. They guide me on differentiating what is right from wrong, good from bad. These values form my personal character.

Different people may wish to give different emphasis to other values, such as respect, compassion, care for others and innovation. It is all right for them to choose these other values. I believe that these values are already embedded in  my five core values.

I chose my five core values because I found them to be rather lacking in our society and will make an important contribution to improving life in Singapore.

Tan Kin Lian

Forfeiture of Lifetime membership of Gym

Hi Mr. Tan,
Did you notice the series of letters to ST Forum on the lifetime membership of a fitness club. Some people paid thousands to get the lifetime membership, to have it revoked later (presumably without refunds) because they forgot to pay the annual admin fees of a few dollars. The fitness club makes it not so easy to pay the fees (eg. no giro payment).


I wonder if this can be classified as a scam. But it definitely highlight another issue of prepaying for a product/service.


REPLY
I think that this is an unfair contract term. There is a law against such unfair contracts. I believe that this law is being handled, in some ways, by the Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE).

Active discussion in Facebook

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