Another Hawker Looking for Customer Who Overpaid $693 But He Didn’t Disclose The Stall Name

If you visited Serangoon Garden Market and Food Centre yesterday around 7 pm, do check your bank balance.

A hawker from the market is looking for a customer who overpaid by $693. However, he did not disclose the stall name, and there’s a good reason.

Here’s what you need to know about it.

Hawker from Serangoon Garden Market and Food Centre is Looking for a Customer Who Overpaid By $693

On Wednesday (15 March), a hawker named William Fong shared in the Facebook group “Hawkers United – Dabao 2020” that a customer had overpaid for their order by $693. Presumably, the customer paid $700 instead of $7.00.

Clearly, someone wasn’t listening in primary school maths.

I’m not going to lie—if it were me, the $700 transaction wouldn’t even go through…

Mr Fong shared that the customer visited Serangoon Garden Market and Food Centre around 7 pm. He urges the customer to contact them via their mobile number for the balance return.

If you have any friends or family who fit the description, do bring the Facebook post to their attention.

Stall Name Not Disclosed in the Facebook Post

The stall name was not disclosed by Mr Fong in the Facebook post. Some netizens pointed this out and even started a vigorous discussion in the comment section about whether Mr Fong should have disclosed the stall name.

Perhaps netizens hoped that Mr Fong should have added more information on the customer. Maybe “leng zai who visited Serangoon Garden Market around 7 pm” would be a more targeted description.

Notably, a netizen encouraged Mr Fong to disclose his stall’s name as the customer might not even remember which stall they overpaid at.

In response, another netizen speculated that Mr Fong did not disclose his stall name to avoid a situation where anyone could demand a refund from Mr Fong. In contrast, the actual buyer would be aware of which stall they had purchased their meal from and would be able to contact Mr Fong accordingly.

In response to another comment, the stall owner Mr Fong provided his reason for not disclosing the name of his stall.

Mr Fong shared that his refusal to provide the stall’s name was premised on the fact that he did not want to promote anything other than the return of the $693 to the appropriate customer. He also added that the location and time of the purchase he provided in the post were “good enough for the customer to recall” the stall.

However, Mr Fong also shared that if the customer does not reach out to the stall owner by this weekend, the stall owners will head to the bank to reverse the transaction.

Faith in humanity, restored.

Not the First Hawker Looking for Overpaying Customer

The problem of overpaying by such large margins is a uniquely modern one. With the ubiquity of cashless payments, we often press on too many zeroes on PayLah! or PayNow. Fortunately, most of us spot these errors before making our payments.

Earlier this year, another hawker was also looking for a customer who overpaid—except the customer paid $450 instead of $4.50 to a ban mian stall.

The customer, however, was not a regular customer, so the ban mian stall owner could not contact them directly. Instead, the stall owner also took to Facebook to search for the overpaying customer.

All this, however, isn’t to reassure you that you can continue paying without looking. Remember to check that you’ve keyed in the correct payment value before making your payments.

After all, not everyone might be as honest as these hawkers are.