PETALING JAYA: A raging customer stormed into an electrical appliance store in Sabah demanding to see the shop’s manager for “cheating people”.
A 8:49-minute-long video uploaded on YouTube yesterday showed the unnamed Chinese man in his 40s entering a SenQ outlet allegedly at the Karamunsing Shopping Centre in Kota Kinabalu and tearing the outlet apart in front of a crowd and several security guards.
As he walked into the store, he slammed a nearby counter shouting for the manager to show himself.
“Tell the manager to come out!…Cheating people! Where’s the manager? Tell him to come out now!” the casually-dressed man shouted at staff, before he threw benches and chairs around.
He was also seen gesturing angrily at staff, and stalking a few of them menacingly around the shop.
Several security guards tried to calm the man down but their presence did not stop him from going ballistic.
“This is not your problem! Don’t come! Tell the police to come!…I’m not stealing anything!” he shouted at the stunned guards, who stood by as he slammed a keyboard to bits on a counter.
Despite his rage, the man avoided attacking the more expensive electrical items in the store, such as the laptops and televisions which were on display.
Hinting at the damages he was causing, the man said to the camera at one point: “Don’t worry. I’ll pay.” He did not threaten the cameraman, and seemed more than willing to have his face captured on video.
He also shouted to the crowd of onlookers to look at Facebook. He may have been implying for people to check out the store’s Facebook page.
Allegations of ‘dishonesty’
According to YouTube user ‘ilovenikkoz’, the man in question was not an angry customer.
The user said the fracas occurred because of SenQ’s apparent “dishonesty”, referring to it as a “West Malaysian” company.
“They teach their staff to give wrong information to customers…so that they get their product sold.
“[That includes] fake information about the product, [e]specially warranty, talking bad/incorrect about other company, higher price than any other retailer. Please think twice before you buy,” the user claimed.
A link to SenQ’s Facebook page was also provided. It is not known if the person who uploaded the video was also the cameraman.
In any case, the video sparked a series of reactions from netizens, supporting and criticising the man at the same time.
YouTube user Flizzardo said: “Giving wrong information when selling your product is considered as dishonesty, but it’s [the] customer’s own fault if they did not do their research properly.
“There is no excuse and justification for damaging others’ property,” the user said.
Another YouTube user, Jason Chong said: “It does not matter how bad SenQ’s reputation is. You need to understand violence just doesn’t work!
“He doesn’t even dare to throw something that is expensive like laptops or televisions, and he broke all cheap stuff like keyboard [and] chairs,” he said.
Another YouTube user Wesleyleve said: “I love this guy, so…entertaining. He has more authority than the security and he’s telling them what to do…I miss Sabah.”
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| ‘Not a customer’ |
Meanwhile when contacted by FMT, Sen Heng Borneo region area manager Ho Weng Hung said that the man in the video was not an angry customer, but a local competitor.
Ho identified the man as “AK Chin”, who ran a audio-centric store called A-K Audio at the Centre Point shopping centre in Kota Kinabalu.
According to him, AK Chin was allegedly unhappy with his customers flocking to the SenQ shop.
“He’s not a customer. He has been coming to the shop and making noise on more than 10 occasions.
“He’s been [operating] for quite a long time in KK. So once his customers buy from us, he makes noise,” Ho said.
He added that the man in the blue T-shirt was also a friend of Chin’s.
In fact, Ho claimed that this was not the first time that Chin was seen causing a ruckus at SenQ’s outlets. According to him, Chin pulled a similar stunt at SenQ’s 1Borneo outlet last year.
Ho said that at the time, Chin intended on settling the matter without going through legal means, but decided not to meet over the issue.
This episode however, has come as a last straw to SenQ.
“We can’t let go of this already. It’s totally damaging our reputation,” Ho said, adding that his company had lodged a police report against Chin last night.
(SenQ and Sen Heng are the same company, with the former identified as a rebranding measure.)
Read more: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/07/05/angry-rival-terrorises-senq-outlet/#ixzz21EJGa4aU
