FB Post of 18YO With Dyslexia ‘Pressured’ to Buy $426 of Products Got 2.5K Shares

It’s never right to pressure anyone to buy anything.

But it’s also very right to say “no” firmly.

And while this viral Facebook post has its merits on spreading awareness about high-pressure selling, the means don’t justify the ends.

Here’s why.

Facebook Post of 18YO With Dyslexia ‘Pressured’ to Buy $426 of Products Got 2.5K Shares

A person decided to post a lengthy post about how a “harmless, dyslexic 18-year-old boy” had been pressured to buy $426 worth of cosmetic products he most probably didn’t need.

And because it’s a super long post, here’s a tl;dr version in point form:

• 18YO dyslexic guy (she used “boy”, but I’m going to use “guy” because 18YO can serve NS liao, and if you dyslexic you still chong sua yo!) was in JEM when he was led into a shop to try some facial products
• He bought something because it seemed like that’s the only way to leave
• The sales consultant somehow managed to find out how much money the guy has in his bank account, and so tried to sell more things to him which he agreed
• The guy had intended to buy shoes, but when he realised that his bank account didn’t have enough money, he called his mother (instead)
• Refund was eventually made
• The FB user then went on a rant on how unethical the business is

Here’s the full post if you’re interested to read everything:

Now, for a start, the shop is definitely not an angel: hard-selling to a boy who doesn’t need those products isn’t adding value to the consumer. You can buy almost seven Huawei phones with that money!

This, unfortunately, isn’t uncommon: in fact, just two days ago, CASE issued an advisory about “aggressive pressure sales tactics in the beauty industry”:

However, live in this world long enough and you’ll know that either you build an immunity against hard-sellers by standing up for yourself, or you’ll be like me who’s gone bankrupt after getting ten insurance policies because ten agents held a knife on my throat when they were telling me about the benefits of the policies.

Pointing them out in Facebook is akin to giving fishes to the weak: instead, the weak should train to counter such tactic and be firm.

But this isn’t the point.

If you know a person who’s dyslexic, you’ll know where this article is leaning to.

Dyslexia: Simi Lai De?

To start off, let’s list down some famous people with dyslexia:

• Richard Branson: Virgin Group founder that controls over 400 companies and is worth at just USD$5.1 billion
• Albert Einstein: The person who made physics lessons a pain in the butt
• Tom Cruise: The man who can defy ageing without using any facial products
• Steve Jobs: You’re reading this on your phone because of him
• Steven Spielberg: Other than directing movies that you’d have definitely watched before, he’s got the worries on how to spend his USD$3.7 billion worth of assets and cash

See the problem now?

No?

Then look at this comment:

Get it?

The post seems to imply that the 18YO “boy” was pressured and made the decision due to dyslexia. That couldn’t have been the case because, to put it in the simplest form, anyone with dyslexia usually has difficulties in reading and writing (i.e. language). Because of that, they’re usually much more creative and can think out of the box.

And that’s that. Pretty sure people with dyslexia can’t be pressured to buy things they don’t need, if not Richard Branson would have bought honestbee over to his Virgin Group.

We know because someone in the office has dyslexia as well. To put things into context, he’s highly intelligent and highly creative, but he can’t type a paragraph with Notepad—he needs MS Words because even at the age of over 30, he just can’t spell some words perfectly, and he hates typing on the small screen.

But he definitely knows his numbers very well: owe him $10 and he’ll make sure he stands firm and get it back from you the next day.

The moral of the story?

If you’re inclined to think that dyslexia contributed to this incident, please think again.

Here, we post this again FYI:

Not we say one hor.