Vague Reveries

Yesterday, we got my sister her Dell XPS M1330 from TecAsia in Karamunsing Complex. At first I just wanted to take a look at those small, lightweight Sony Vaio laptops as we didn’t know that shop sells Dell products now. Mom wanted to buy a laptop for my sis where she could actually touch and inspect the item before making a purchase but the lighter Acer laptops are just too expensive. So she reverted to purchasing a Dell Inspiron for my sis, online, when we get home. Back to the original idea But hey, since the laptops are there in front of her eyes, might as well get it right there and then. Doesn’t have to wait for a week for the laptop to arrive to my office’s door step - no hassle of explaining to my lady boss of the whole story and the price of the laptop too!

Oh speaking of this shop, TecAsia, (situated at the Ground Floor, next to Watson’s) it’s my new favourite place for gadgets since it does NOT charge the customer for using credit cards like most of the other shops around KK! The sales personnel was very nice and helpful too. Back to the credit cards, I’m sure you have experienced being told by the sales person that there’s a charge of 2%-3% if you want to pay using your credit cards. The merchant charges the shop about RM1,200 per year, and we’re paying for the charges for them and earn more too!! I mean, a shop could get RM1,200 paid when they charges the customers, say that average 2.5% you hear at most places, in a day, and the rest of the month when people pay using their cards, are just more income from them. Imagine if you were to pay for a laptop that cost about RM 4,000 with your credit card from a shop that charges 2.5%, that would be another extra RM100 for you to pay. RM 100 x 10 customers in a day, that’s already RM 1,000 right? Human leeches!!

Why do we have to pay extra, just so the shop can give us the service of using our credit cards to pay for the goods we need, when it is the shops that should be paying for that? For a big purchase like this, for sure we don’t want to carry such large amount if we can help it, right? It’s more likely for us to find the nearest ATM to withdraw the money and going back to the shop again to get the item. That is where the credit cards comes in handy, so that you can just pay for the item using the online banking later! But these human leeches takes advantage of our laziness, or maybe the fact that we just haven’t got our paycheck for the month Meaning, no cash at the moment, or that we keep the saving in an ASB account, where we have to line up in a bank or a Post Office to withdraw the cash.

Let’s see this situation. We wanted to buy a Kingston pendrive, a printer ink cartridge, DVD-R and CD-R but TecAsia does not sell Kingston pendrives. So we thought we’d just buy all these items from a shop that sells the Kingston pendrive. After we got the laptop, we went to a shop at the 2nd Floor. Wrong decision!!! Should’ve bought the rest of the stuff from TecAsia and just buy the Kingston pendrive from this shop. Why? The shop charges 2.5% out of the purchase! Roughly the total purchase was RM205, and if Mom were to use her credit card, it would be RM210 in total. Another extra RM5!! As we always avoid to use credit card at places like this, Mom just paid cash. She was grumbling as she lost out the points for using her credit cards when she could just have earn it if we bought the stuff from the same shop at the Ground Floor. And of course for the fact that she had to use the cash she brought with her. Oh, don’t get me wrong, my mom is not in a credit debt. Far from it! She just doesn’t like to withdraw cash again and again, she prefer to pay with credit cards and settle them through Maybank2u.

Mom is not rich, but she is definitely not in debt either. Something that I get to hear the lecture over and over again. If Mom didn’t MADE me signed up for that Amanah Saham Berhad unit trust fund from Maybank a few years back, I would not have any savings at the moment. I suck at financial management! But I’m lucky to have Mom to do that for me. She is not happy with the fact that I charged my credit cards for the gadgets I currently have, but I’m learning to have her financial sensibility now. Those computer, electrical/electronic and mobile phones shops are the ones that charges us with this extra charges. Let’s try to avoid paying these shops using credit cards when they demand for this charges, and make that trip to the ATM instead. You are not getting a good deal if you have to pay for that anyway. If we want to shop, let’s just be smart shoppers. Let the credit cards be a convenience to us, not a burden.

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Tags: Credit cards, Dell Inspiron 1420, Dell XPS M1330, Karamunsing, merchant, retails, TecAsia   Posted Lifestyles, Sabah, Shopaholism |