Today marked the 3rd month of my r/s with him. Wanting to catch a movie at Shaw Lido. Thanks to the very 'USER FRIENDLY' website booking. I got the tickets at Balester Shaw instead. Due to the heavy traffic and his late knock off, we were late for abt 15 minutes. As i'm collecting tickets with the card i used online to book, something nasty happened!

Lady: "Oh it's a debit card is it? It's not accepted. I'll cancel your
transaction.”

Me: " What you mean? The amount is already deducted from my acct!"

The lady continued to mumble to herself. And the stupid glass plane in between further impede conversation.

Him : "WHAT DO YOU MEAN? You are talking to yourself!
I have used debit card to book online all the time!”

Lady: " Oh, now cannot."

Him : " Why?”

Lady: "Coz verbal instructions were given this morning."

He took out his DBS debit while i took out my POSB debit.

Him: "Can you accept these?"

Lady: "Yes."

Him: "Why?"

Lady: "Coz there is no debit written on the card."

THIS IS LUDICROUS!! How rigid and stupid can they be??

Me: "I want to speak to someone of higher authority! I want to see your manager.
Could you ask him out?"

The manager took a while to come out. A tall middle aged chap wallked out with the word 'panic' written all over his face. I think he faltered on coming out. He stood far far away from the glass plane to talk to us. He's probably too appalled over Dylan's agitation. I vaguely remember the conversation but it went something like this. Take note of this, the manager kept going in and out of the office, seemed trying to elude.


Manager: "Ya, it's true that we were only given verbal instructions. Don't worry, the money will refund back to you."

Me : "What do you have to prove that the money will return back to me? It's already be earmark?"

Him : " Shaw should be responsible in telling her customers that debit cards are not accepted and not allowing transactions to go through! What about the inconveniences? What about my parking fees and food that we bought for the movie?"

Manager: "I'm sorry but there's nothing we could do. It's the bank which dun allow its debit card to be used."

What rubbish? Shaw employed you to be a vase and do nothing? Not even appeasing your angry customer?

Me : " Is that so? I shall call the bank now!"

Long wait for UOB customer service to come to the line. After a pretty long conversation, she said it's the merchant deducting the money from my account. But debit card would hold that money for 2 days before deducting directly from the account. You can try requesting the merchant to refund cash. If not, I have to allow 2 weeks for it to process! And if the merchant dun return me that stupid $17, i have to make my way down to dunno where to fill in this dispute form. Kaoz!

Me: "Where is your manager? Hi, could you come out of this room? It's very hard to talk like that."

He finally stepped out.

Me:" The bank says it's Shaw. It's has nothing to do with them. It's between the merchant and customer. Bank is only the middleman. Look here, i dun wan to go through so much trouble just to get my $17 . I want a cash refund. I rushed all the way here from work and hoping to catch a good show. And this is what turned up to be? The big company, Shaw, owe me $17bucks?

Manager: "Shaw don't owe you money. Your case is really the first case!"

Me: "It's not about if it's the first case. It's about knowing what to do! Give me some documents to affirm that Shaw will refund me then? I think verbal vouch is dodgy."

See ar.. If they want to end this stupid arguement, they could just give us a printed document but what we got is a written transaction no. Even the manager dun have a proper name card. WTF.

Manager: "We are just following instructions given by HQ."

Me: "See? It's between you guys and HQ. Your HQ put you all in a difficult spot and why involved the innocent customers? Wasting their precious time!"

Him:" Your HQ shouldn't even give instructions like that without a good explanation for the employee to customers. Your employees were dumbfounded upon asking why!"

Me: "Let me talk to your HQ."

Manager: " I will let my HQ know."

He went into the tiny room and started dialing.........

Manager:" I already let them know all of this, even the possibility of court case. At my level, what i could do is to sign you all in into the next showtime. Is that fine with you all?"

Of course, this is the least he could do for us from the start!!!! How rigid are the rules?? If he is quick witted enough, he would have do something like that. And not saying, nothing he could do!! Ridiculous, he's a blardy manager there! On top of all these, it's extremely irritating and difficult to try to do an online booking using Shaw website! First you have to register! Then the seatings plan took ages to load! Upon pressing 'OK', there is no other confirmation request. How infuriating and moronic!

Well, i have never like Shaw from the start too. Now that such things happen, i would never go Shaw ever again. And i still expect them to refund me the money! This whole argument took us an hour! I went into the cinema and started scrutinizing at every signboard they put!
"NO FOOD AND DRINKS ALLOWED" --> Does that means that your own cinema food are not allowed? For god's sake, big company should spend abit more money to get a proper sign board! Kaoz.....

Think twice before booking online at Shaw! Why Golden Village and Cathay don't have such problems? Obviously, it's discrimination. What's wrong with debit card? It's not as if there is no money! I think your system is more unreliable than what you think of debit card with the word DEBIT written on it. I wasn't given any reason on ridiculous change still.