SINGAPORE – Some travellers using online travel booking sites have ended up paying more than they bargained for because of the non-transparent pricing and marketing practices used on these sites, said the competition watchdog.
The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) flagged this concern on Monday (Sept 30) when it released the findings of a nine-month-long market study on the online travel booking sector in Singapore.
To tackle such practices in the industry and beyond, it is proposing guidelines on price transparency for all consumer-facing businesses. The guidelines will provide more clarity on what constitutes an infringement of consumer protection laws, and set out the factors and circumstances that the commission may consider in assessing if advertised prices and related practices are potentially misleading.
The commission flagged four common pricing and marketing practices that could mislead consumers: Drip pricing, pre-ticked boxes, strikethrough pricing and pressure selling.
A new season of National Steps Challenge calls for a new fitness tracker for participants!
Axtro announced its next-generation fitness tracker, the Axtro Fit 2 which is developed in collaboration with the Health Promotion Board for the upcoming National Steps Challenge Season 5. The National Steps Challenge Season 5 will officially start on 26 October.
The Axtro Fit 2 comes with several improvements such as a colour screen that is viewable under sunlight, an intuitive interface, an improved heart rate sensor for more accurate tracking and detection, a better G-sensor for steps and activity tracking, and longer battery life (5-7 days on a single charge).
SINGAPORE – A former remisier testified that when he asked his client Quah Su-Ling if she was manipulating the market, she gave him the response “What are you scared of? My house is full of lawyers”.
Quah and her co-accused John Soh Chee Wen now stand trial over the alleged manipulation of penny stocks Blumont Group, Asiasons Capital (now known as Attilan Group) and LionGold Corp in August 2012 to October 2013. The counters rocketed more than 800 per cent in a span of nine months before crashing on Oct 4, 2013, triggering a wider penny stock rout that wiped $8 billion from the Singapore stock market.
Malaysian businessman Soh faces 189 charges, including eight counts of allegedly tampering or attempting to tamper with witnesses, while Quah faces 178 charges. A third defendant, Goh Hin Calm, was sentenced to 36 months’ jail in March after pleading guilty to two of six charges of abetment. Four other charges were taken into consideration.
Last week saw a huge uproar erupt online over a controversial decision to sentence a guilty molester to probation in lieu of jail time — thanks to his commendable GPA score.
For his “minor intrusions” of repeatedly outraging the modesty of a female commuter on a train and at Serangoon MRT station, District Judge Jasvender Kaur decided that National University of Singapore undergrad Terence Siow Kai Yuan deserved 21 months of supervised probation.
She rejected the prosecution’s call for the 23-year-old to be jailed for six weeks, stating that his academic results showed he has “potential to excel in life“.
Residents in Bedok North had called the police due to a pungent rotting smell coming from their neighbour’s unit.
However, mountains of rubbish had to be carted out of the flat before the police were able to retrieve a decomposing body within it.
On Saturday (Sept 28) night, the body of an elderly man was found in a 12th storey unit at Blk 519, Bedok North Avenue 1. Paramedics pronounced him dead on the spot.
According to Lianhe Wanbao, the flat had piles of rubbish that reached the ceiling and gave off a vile and putrid smell.
PHOTO: Singapore Press Holdings
After prying the doors open, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and the police had to wait for cleaners to clear the rubbish before they could reach the body.
The 68-year-old occupant was believed to have died in the kitchen.
SINGAPORE – Households and businesses can expect lower electricity bills for the next three months.
Electricity tariffs for October to December are set to fall by an average of 3.3 per cent, or 0.79 cent per kwh, compared with the previous quarter, SP Group said on Monday (Sept 30).
The decline is due to the lower cost of natural gas for electricity generation compared with the previous quarter, SP Group said.
For households, the electricity tariff before the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will decrease from 24.22 cents to 23.43 cents per kwh during the three-month period.
The average monthly electricity bill for families living in four-room HDB flats still tied to the SP Group will decrease by $2.84.
The electricity tariffs for July to September this year – 24.22 cents per kwh – was the highest in nearly five years, since the period from October to December 2014, when it was 25.28 cents before GST.
SP Group reviews tariffs quarterly, based on guidelines set by the Energy Market Authority, which approved the new pricing.
SINGAPORE – When a social media influencer’s post calling two men wearing turbans “huge obstructions” to her view at the Singapore Grand Prix went viral, some among the Sikh community felt uncomfortable.
But increasingly heated online criticism of Ms Sheena Phua, an Instagram beauty and travel content influencer with more than 76,000 followers, led a group of young Sikhs to an unconventional response: they invited her to an informal tour of a gurdwara so that she could learn more about their traditions.
Mr Sarabjeet Singh, 34, the president of the Young Sikh Association (YSA), told The Straits Times his group’s gesture took some thinking through.
“Some responses to Sheena’s original post felt like a case of cyberbullying. (Although) there were some among us who were also a little uncomfortable with her initial post, we recognised it as an opportunity for us to reach out and engage,” he said.
“We still feel that we did not want an apology. Would an apology alone have done anything to improve awareness and understanding?”
SINGAPORE: The electricity tariff for households will fall for the October to December period after it rose to a near five-year high in the previous quarter.
The tariff will decrease by an average of 3.3 per cent, or 0.79 cent per kilowatt hour (kWh), compared to the previous quarter. This is mainly due to the lower cost of natural gas for electricity generation, SP Group said on Monday (Sep 30).
For households, the electricity tariff will decrease from 24.22 cents to 23.43 cents per kWh, excluding Goods and Services Tax (GST), from Oct 1 to Dec 31. This means that the average monthly electricity bill for families living in four-room Housing Board flats will decrease by S$2.84, SP Group said.
The rate of 24.22 cents in the July to September period was a 6.4 per cent increase from the preceding quarter and the highest rate since 2014. SP Group said then that the increase was due to the higher cost of natural gas.
SP Group reviews the electricity tariffs quarterly based on guidelines set by the Energy Market Authority, the electricity industry regulator.
A 19-hour service disruption, which affected about 3,000 end-users’ fibre broadband service in north-eastern Singapore, was fully resolved by 11.07 am on Sunday (Sept 29), fibre operator NetLink Trust said.
“NetLink Trust is investigating this matter and will take all necessary actions against the errant party,” a spokesman said.
“The NetLink Trust team worked closely with all relevant parties to ensure that the service to the affected area was restored as soon as possible. Individuals in the affected area can call your respective Internet Service Providers should there be further inquiries.”
The outage, which was reported at 4.14 pm on Saturday, was caused when a third-party contractor severed the fibre cables while performing sheet piling work along Yio Chu Kang Road, NetLink Trust said.
SINGAPORE: The number of workplace deaths in Singapore fell to 17 in the first half of the year, but more workers suffered injuries, according to figures released by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on Monday (Sep 30).
The number of deaths was slightly fewer compared to the same period last year, when 18 workers were killed, and was the lowest figure since 2012 when the ministry started tracking fatality data for all workplaces.
However, the 12-month rolling fatal injury rate remained unchanged at 1.2 per 100,000 employed people as at the end of June this year.
Non-fatal workplace injuries rose by 8 per cent, from 6,073 cases in the first half of 2018 to 6,561 cases in the first half of 2019.
The ministry called for “vigilance” in the construction, manufacturing and transportation and storage industries, with these industries representing the top three sectors with the most workplace injuries.
The construction industry remained the top contributor of fatal injuries, with 35 per cent of total workplace fatal injuries.
(Source: Ministry of Manpower)
The number of workers seriously injured in workplace accidents has also become more evenly spread across diverse industries, said MOM.
More major injuries were seen in the lower-risk industries of accommodation and food services (from 16 in the first half of 2018 to 34 in the first half of 2019), wholesale and retail trade (from 15 to 21) and professional services (from five to 10).
FALLS FROM HEIGHT STILL KEY CONCERN
Falls from height remained a key concern, said MOM, with four such incidents resulting in deaths in the first half of the year, one more than the same period last year. Two of these happened in the construction industry.
Fatalities due to the collapse or failure of structure and equipment increased to three cases in the first half of 2019 from one case in the same period last year, while vehicular-related deaths remained at four cases in both periods.
Slips, trips and falls remained as the top cause of both major and minor injuries.
Major injuries from such incidents decreased from 111 in the first half of 2018 to 87 in the first half of 2019, but minor injuries increased by 8 per cent from 1,630 to 1,757.
MOM also called for more attention to be paid to reducing machinery-related incidents, the second-most common cause of major and minor injuries.
(Source: Ministry of Manpower)
The number of dangerous occurrences – incidents with a high potential for multiple deaths – as well as the number of occupational diseases both fell.
The number of dangerous occurrences fell from 10 cases in the first half of 2018 to eight in the first half of this year, with five due to collapse or failure of structures and equipment while the others were due to fires and explosions.
The number of occupational diseases fell from 295 cases to 263.
Work-related musculoskeletal disorders, noise-induced deafness and occupational skin diseases made up the top three categories of occupational diseases.
NEARLY 300 COMPANIES FINED
In the first half of the year, MOM conducted around 2,500 inspections which uncovered more than 4,300 workplace safety and health contraventions.
It issued a total of 29 stop-work orders, with an average duration of four weeks.
A total of S$680,000 in composition fines was imposed on close to 300 companies during this period.
For the second half of the year, the ministry said it plans to conduct more inspections targeting industries such as construction, manufacturing and transportation and storage.
It will also conduct inspections in sectors which saw a rise in major injuries, such as accommodation and food services, and wholesale and retail trade industries.
“It is encouraging that the first half of 2019 recorded the lowest half-yearly number of fatalities,” said Mr Christopher Koh, director of the policy, information and corporate services department at MOM. “However, we cannot be complacent as non-fatal injuries continue to rise, including in industries that were previously less accident-prone.”
Authorities have recently amended the Work Injury Compensation Act to share claims data with all insurers, and this will help safer companies benefit from lower premiums, said Mr Koh.
“We will also publish injury statistics of companies, starting with the construction industry in 2020, so that safer companies will stand a better chance at securing business.”
