Kovan Chicken Rice Stall Allegedly Scams Teenage Girl; Her Mother Angrily Confronts Hawker

Chicken rice. We all know that it’s sort of a staple to many Singaporeans here. $3.50 for a good ol’ plate of chicken and rice?

Yum.

Cheap and good. Fills your tummy up just right too. And it’s even better when they give you some soup to accompany your rice.

Well, having eaten chicken rice for so many times, I’m pretty sure many of us know that the price of a standard plate would usually cost $3 to $3.50. A bigger plate would be $4 or $4.50 depending on the stall and the location.

But I don’t think anyone would have expected $4.50 for a standard plate of chicken rice. So when her teenage daughter was charged that amount for a miserable plate, a mother became enraged and proceeded to confront the hawker.

What Happened

The incident occurred at a Kovan hawker centre between Tong Fong Fatt Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice stall and a lady known as Tan on 9 December at around 1.30pm.

Tan claimed that she sent her 13-year-old daughter to buy a plate of $3.50 chicken thigh rice at the above stall, but when she came back, she told her mother that it cost her $4.50. Apparently, the stall owner had only offered her two options, either the $4.50 one or the $5.50 one.

Seeing as to how there were no prices stated on the stall front, her daughter believed that it cost $4.50 for a small plate and simply paid the amount without any questions.

Tan was shocked by this because it was more expensive than usual, so she thought that her daughter must have been overcharged.

She decided to approach the stall and ask them how much a plate of chicken rice was. Another uncle who was manning the stall said that one plate would cost either $2.50 or $3.50.

Hmm. Those price points sound more likely.

Now that she knew the actual price of one plate of chicken rice, she waited for the hawker who overcharged her daughter to return.

The moment he was back, she asked the uncle how much it was to buy a plate of chicken rice, to which he replied $3.50.

Hearing this just made her even more angry and she bursts and questions why he overcharged her daughter by saying that her plate cost $4.50.

Instead of feeling any remorse for allegedly cheating a young girl, he simply said that he did offer two prices for different portions, and that her daughter ordered it willingly.

Hearing how rude he was in response to her, she filmed her argument with him and she can clearly be heard saying “you never put how much” twice. She also kept accusing him of “cheating” children, that he wanted to scam her child even if it was just a dollar.

He brushed it off saying that his stall was honest and aboveboard.

She continues shouting at him, saying that she could afford a plate even if it was $5.50, but that it wasn’t reasonable. She also added that he might as well have said that the plate of chicken rice was $9 or $10 instead.

No Refund Given

After the argument, Tan claimed that she wasn’t given a refund. When she went home, she looked up this particular stall and found that many others had similar experiences as her.

The overall rating for this stall was apparently only 1.6 stars out of five, and had 19 reviews.

Three of them said that the price wasn’t listed and were charged a much higher price than the standard $3.50.

Another mentioned that the stall owners were very rude and only provided plastic cutlery despite it being non-peak hour.

It seems that one thing is consistent – the staff are rude.

Tan later said that she hopes that actions will be taken against the stall because she believes that diners shouldn’t have to be treated this way by them.

Well, it seems that this stall has a reputation of being rude. If it is indeed true that they’re overcharging their customers for just a standard plate of chicken rice, more needs to be done to ensure that they do not do this.

Alternatively, now that you know that this stall has a history record of overcharging customers, perhaps one thing you could do is to just avoid buying from them and opt to buy chicken rice from another stall instead.

If you would like to view the video of them arguing, you can view it here.