Sorry, We’re out of 1 Cent Coins.
I find some shops in Miri are ridiculously making easy money of the customer using one same reason.
Just few weeks ago, I went to the usual shop that I always go to buy my lunch. And they have lately imposed a 5% service tax on all their foods sold. I bought economy rice, priced at RM3.68 include the tax. I gave the lady RM4.00 and she gave me back 30 cents. I looked at her and ask, “Where’s my 2 cents?”. And guess what she answered?
“Sorry, we’re out of 1 cent coins. You have 8 cents or not?”
Then I looked at her with a “WTF expression”. I am dumbfucked with her reason. Out of 1 cent coins? Are they doing business or what? Next time I will open up a shop, and when my customer pay with RM50 bills for an item cost like RM10, then I can say to my customer them that we are out of RM10 bills. Hopefully then my customer will say keep the change. And there, I have RM40 extra profit.
Just last week I went there for another takeaway. And yes, they are out of 1 cent coins again. And this is not the only shop that is always out of 1 cent coins. The big hypermarket in Miri used to have this problem, but lately they’re doing fine with stocking up their 1 cent coins. This 1 cent coins issue even affected the Fast Food chains like Sugarbun or KFC sometimes. But there are shops that are out of 1 cent coins EVERY time I go there.
Let’s say there are 50 customers that does not get their 2 cents back. That means the shop can get RM1 per day, which is RM30 per month, of which an extra “keep the change” profit around RM360 per year. Eh, easy profit leh. If you have more customer and you absorbed all the extra they paid, it’s easy business isn’t it?
Why does those shops lack of 1 cent coins? Bank Negara didn’t produce enough coins is it? Or is it the business to be blame for not stocking up their 1 cent coins? Or it is the ridiculous pricing set by the business and the 5% tax that causes the price to be in these ridiculous figure?
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May 15th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Its pure lazyness…and daylight mugging…remember the guy who worked at the bank who stole 1 cents from each customer everyday? He bought plenty of sport cars~!
May 15th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
sikit-sikit lama-lama jadi bukit.
May 15th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Whether that particular incident of yours the person was really conning you or not, I do know of several business proprietors saying that 1cent coins are really in short supply. You can ask your local bank to veriify this.
If I were the business operator I
May 15th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Too bad I haven’t met any operator that would absorb the loss due to their 1 cent coins supply outage. They’d rather make the customer absorbed the loss rather than themselves. I guess nobody is as kind as you, Ian.
May 15th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
I’d absorb the loss only in cases where cents are not around, but I’d make damn sure I have enough cents for my business to go about in the first place.
Of course, then again if it were my busness, unless I’m right there, I’d have no idea what my cashier would be thinking either.
I have no idea why we’re in such short supply of cent coins. Wondering if counterfeiting had to do with it. That doesn’t quite tally up…
Anyway, Boulevard does not have this problem because they’re best friends with the banks, and can request for pretty much anything.
May 15th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
daylight ripping off ~
May 16th, 2007 at 9:33 am
They should do something like Singapore, everything has already taxed into it so if you see a McD mean for SGD 5.50, you pay the exact amount. Why wouldn’t our government implement something simple like this?
May 16th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Damn o Damn~ !cent is reli large amount 4 me~~
How can they do biznes like that!!!? Next time i should buy things
and give them short of one or five or ten cents~ i don think that
action is wrong bcz i jz claim back the previous change that
put as “deposit” in their account last time. Cheh~!
May 20th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I know what you mean! And I always find myself asking the same question, “Will they accept it if I said I didn’t have 1 sen coins?” The answer, very obviously, is NO.
And surprisingly, these people who do not have 1 sen coins are big companies like Guardian and Watson. Hmmph!