December 29, 2004
Hong Kong Blogging
Lamma is illuminated again as HKMacs moves to blogspot.com and escapes the clutches of PCCW.
Posted by dave at 09:31 AM. TrackBack Comments (1)
December 25, 2004
Happy Christmas!
Happy Christmas to all! (Please subsitute appropriate festival if Christmas isn't something you celebrate.)
Posted by dave at 06:11 PM. TrackBack Comments (0)
December 19, 2004
Gourami
On of my Blue Gourami swims in the deep blue of the moonlight bulb. An Albino Tiger Barb can be seen in the background.
Posted by dave at 12:00 PM. TrackBack Comments (0)
December 12, 2004
Buying Cameras in Tsim Sha Tsui
There's another story in the South China Unlinkable Morning Post about people who've been ripped off buying a camera along Nathan Road.
Tourists tell court they were duped over camera
ELAINE WU
Two British tourists flew from London to testify yesterday about how they were duped into buying a camera for twice its normal price.
Advertising managers Nigel Down and his partner Nicola Katav appeared in Kowloon City Court as witnesses in the trial of salesman Yu Wai-tung, of Union Digital World, Tsim Sha Tsui.
Yu, 41, had pleaded not guilty before magistrate Bruce McNair to a charge of attempted fraud for inducing Mr Down to buying a camera for $11,500 on May 1.
Mr Down, a regular business traveller to Hong Kong since 1992, told the court he was duped into buying the 6.3-megapixel Fuji FinePix S7000 camera after Yu told him it had a resolution of 16 megapixels.
Mr Down first bought a Nikon D70 digital camera for $7,000 on Ms Katav's credit card. But he was convinced by Yu that the Fuji model was better, so the salesman ripped up the credit card docket to void the transaction, the court heard. Mr Down was then told he had to pay an extra $960 to buy a Memory Stick device for the camera.
"I thought we were being naive at this point because the credit card was being swiped so many times," Ms Katav said.
It was only after police in the course of an investigation entered the shop and talked to Yu that the couple found out what was going on, the court heard. Yu told one Fuji camera only cost $5,000 and the $11,500 Mr Down paid included a printer and camera lens. But the couple told the court they had not been told about the accessories.
The trial continues on Monday.
The guy's been coming to Hong Kong since 1992 and still hasn't figured out that camera shops along Nathan Road are criminals? Is he thick? Has he never read a single guidebook? Every guidebook that I've read stresses taking great care when buying cameras and electronics in Tsim Sha Tsui. If you ask anyone who actually lives here where to buy a camera, only a complete dribbling idiot would suggest Nathan Road. (Most locals would head for Mong Kok, or Stanley Street in Central.)
Please note that I'm not attempting to justify the actions of the camera shop scum. These guys are thieves and the cumulative damage they have done to Hong Kong's reputation is probably in the millions of dollars worth of people who will never come back or who spread negative word of mouth after being ripped off here.
However, where they are and what they do is pretty much common knowledge. Everyone knows that you have to be careful buying a camera in Tsim Sha Tsui. Everyone knows that they rip off tourists.
The bait and switch tactic used in this case is the classic tactic used by the unscrupulous operators: the victim is quoted a pretty good price for something, but is then told that that price is for an older model, or that there's a far better model for just a few dollars more.
Another point here is that you have to know what you're buying. The D70 is a DSLR, i.e. it's a camera which allows you to use all compatible Nikon lenses. The Fuji is a good camera, but it has a built-in lens. The markets for these two cameras are very different, and it's hard to see someone who wanted a DSLR changing his mind at the last minute and going for the Fuji.
(Note that the pictures are from the Sing Pao, not the SCMP, as the SCMP didn't have any pictures accompanying the article.)
Posted by dave at 07:36 PM. TrackBack Comments (0)
December 10, 2004
JustBlogIt!
JustBlogIt with a simple right-click.
JustBlogIt is a Mozilla / Firefox extension to allow easy right-click posting to a weblog.
From any website your new blog post is only a right-click away.
Posted by dave at 01:30 PM. TrackBack Comments (0)
December 04, 2004
Hallelujah
It turns out that the song was called Hallelujah after all.
Posted by dave at 11:06 PM. TrackBack Comments (1)
December 02, 2004
Once upon a time you dressed so fine, didn't you?
Silliness: Weird Al Yankovic: Bob. Try and see what the connection between the various phrases is...
Via: Making Light