My fiasco with Yes ( YTL Communications Sdn Bhd )

I am rather disappointed with the way yes.my is playing the game of promotion. As they always say, read the fine print. But, where are the fine print when they either intentionally or unintentionally temporize the whole issue.

OK, the story is as follows:-

It started one evening that I happened to be at Danga City Mall, Johor Bahru where Yes Store is located at the Ground Floor. I am always curious about the internet speed as advertised by yes.my. The personnel working there is  friendly. The speed test as demonstrated is very impressive, achieving more than 15 Mbps download. My streamyx at home is definitely pale in comparison. At this juncture, I am tormented with the decision that I have to make. Should I get one right now, considering that fact that I have already committed to so many telco’s packages, but none is able to achieve this speed.

The sales personnel tells me of the promotion offered by Maybank for cardmembers. The deal is shown below.

82,000 Maybank TreatsPoints will get you the huddle.

Based on the average  value of TreatsPoints, the  huddle can be yours for RM372.73. After taking the rebate and reload card into consideration, the costing of  huddle is as follows:-

        372.73

  –        9.00

-       100.00

___________

= RM263.73

On the other hand, the huddle is retailing at RM399 at the Yes store with a free rebate of RM30, making the actual purchase price at RM369.

The obvious choice, prima facie, is to get the huddle by using Maybank TreatsPoints. Well, I promptly logged into my MayBank account and redeemed the huddle. The huddle arrived in less than a week and somehow it did not make my day. Why?

Upon registering  and activating the Yes ID Starter Pack, as usual, Yes sent me a confirmation email as follows:-

This email differs  from the one shown below.

Under my present Yes Package , I do not benefit the RM160 credit. Based on the RM160 credit, you can get the huddle at RM(369-160) =RM209 from the Yes outlet.

By using Maybank TreatsPoints, I incurred a loss of RM269  – RM209 = RM60.

I did inquire prior to my registration about the promotion and was given assurance that I would benefit from the promo.

When I asked why I did not get the benefit, another yescare advocate conveniently said it was a communication error.

 Some reader may laugh at me for kicking up such a fuss over an iota of price difference of RM60. Mind you, under Yes package, RM60 can provide you two months of usage.

My contention about the whole fiasco is summarized as follows:-

1.       The sales personnel should point out the reason of buying the huddle from the Yes Store as it carries the extra benefits such as the extra credit of RM160.

2.       If I buy the huddle at Yes Store, I stand to gain extra discount under the Maybank Amex program which is about a further 7% discount, translating to about RM28.

In conclusion, my advice to Maybank Card holder, do not redeem the huddle using the treatspoints, instead, redeem the reload card which is a better deal. I wouldn’t do the calculation here, but you get approximately 24% discount.

Incidentally, I have email this blog to yescare@yes.my so that in future, they should provide more equitable right to the consumer  irrespective of the promotion chosen/offered.

Another Quintessential Teochew Cuisines

Tonight is the last leg of our Shantou Trip  and we are feasted with a very authentic Teochew foods in this restaurant.

Menu - Obvious ?

The dining  room is on the left hand side.

Tooth pick or chopstick ?

Exquisite display of dining implements.

We are served with two kinds of drinks - red date juice and red wine.

A microscopic look at the implements.

Cold dish - Goose gizzard ( not liver ), goose meat and jelly fish.

How do you measure the hospitality of the host ? One of the manifestations  is the serving size of the food. In this instance, every diner has  a whole steamed fish to savour. It is a dish that brings out the  intrinsic properties of Teochew cuisine, namely, freshness, steaming, lesser use of flavour, less oil and etc.

Fresh vegetable in soup.

A signature Teochew dish - fried oyster - very succulent. It differs from other foods in term of its sapid character.

A new dish that I have not tried before.

The soup comprises fresh olive, generous portion of sea snail meat and other secret ingredients. 

Fresh crab - steamed.

Deep fried dessert. ( The other twin is not shown. )

None of the diners is able to tell the content inside the papaya.

Fresh papaya is used as a receptacle for sweet  black glutinous rice. The host encourages us to consume the papaya too.

Watermelon, star fruit and honey dew. Of course, the finale is a small cup of "kungfu" tea. ( No photo taken, host may not like what I do, taking picture of every dishes. ) Overall, the qualities of  foods are more than hunky dory.

Zhengcheng Lou - Prince of Tulou

土樓王子 - 振成樓

In order to take this panoramic sight of tulou, I had to pay extra 5 yen in addition to the 90 yen entrance fee.

It takes approximately 2 mins  to circle the tulou at normal walking pace. You may find surprised items being displayed prominently by the residents, maybe it is their culture to flaunt their most prized haute couture.

My one-day experience with Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (GT-P7500)

This morning, I woke up fairly late, around 8.15 a.m. This morning was also the launching date of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 by Celcom, to be precise, at 9.00 am.

As I had no agenda for the whole morning, I thought it might be a good idea to while away my time by making a trip to the Celcom Office at Kempas. Well, I was curious to find out who actually camped outside the roadshow venue as suggested by the Lowyat website. It said, “If you are planning to purchase the tablet especially for those who are going to camp at the selected roadshow venues, we hope this video will be able to keep you occupied and excited for your big day tomorrow. Enjoy!.”

Nevertheless, I told myself I would buy one if I happened to be one of first fifty people as the offered price of RM999.00 was very attractive. However, I did not habour too much hope as I could not be that lucky to be one of the early birds. As a matter of fact, I had no intention to purchase; just made up excuse to buy one.

I arrived at Kempas office around 8.48 a.m., much to my surprise, there were not many early birds and definitely no campers to be seen. There were ample parking lots.

I did not make any head count, anywhere the line in front of the entrance to the Celcom Office could not be more than fifty people. Suddenly, the Murphy’s Law works. It seemed that I was destined to buy one even though I simply made above excuse to be here. So, I lined up in the queue.

The door opened sharp at 9.00 a.m. Again, I told myself that I hoped I was not the first fifty early birds so I had reason not to purchase one. Well, I was “lucky” to be given this card, meaning I was offered to buy the tablet at RM999.00.

Around 10.30 a.m., the process of ownership transfer was completed. Celcom did not accept my Maybank Amex , so I could not enjoy the extra discount which came with using Amex Card on Saturday and Sunday. If Celcom accepted my Amex, I stood to gain another discount of about RM75.00, sufficient to pay for one-month fee which is RM68.00.

Now, the followings are my personal take after one-day hands-on usage.

Pro

1. It has a convenient button to do a screen capture.

Do you know which one ?

2. ….

3. …. ( I do not seem to be able to find anything worth while to be listed here.)

Con

1. It is not so easy to navigate /use even though I am very familiar with Android 2.3.

2. The flash does not work within the browser. The Celcom website keeps asking for the latest flash to be installed.

Installing the latest Flash Player does not help.

3. The “Opera” does not display Chinese characters properly.

4. Movie does play within Facebook.

5. No slot for external “SD Card”, so you are stuck at 16G.

5. No direct HDMI output.

6. Playback on Youtube is not that smooth.

7. Skype can not do video call.

8. I better not to list any more…….

Readers must be wondering why I am so reluctant to procure another tablet as this new toy is my fourth one.

Last year, I bought iPad which is now more than a year old and it is still going strong.

Last year, I also bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab PT1000 even though I wanted to buy an iPhone4.

This year, I bought iPad2 online .

To day, I bought Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

I am not a fanboy of Apple but I must say that Galaxy Tab 10.1 leaves much to be desired. Do you have such short comings with iPad, it is categorical no. If you talk about user experience, the Samsung Galaxy Tab cannot hold a candle to iPad. If it were not offered at a reduced price, I would not have bought it in the first place.

Possibly the reason for the shorter queue at the Celcom Office.

So, what I am going to use my Galaxy Tab for ?

It serves as a very expensive radio. At this moment, it is running on TuneIn Radio app.

P.S.

No FREE Samsung premium items as promised . ( I only got a cleaning clothes. Is it a premium item ? )

How Much of the Street Views of Google Maps Are Outdated ?

Visual Presentation That Is Too Repulsive

This hawker stall, not too far away from Longshan Temple, Taipei, sells an fairly common restaurant dish at hawker-price. However, if you take a closer look, chances you may not want to try. They serve the garlic frog soup where the frog is presented in toto with outer skin. So, naturally, I give it a miss.

Could you identify the frog in the following picture ?

This hawker stall is featured in an article found in the Taipei Guide ( 2011/08 Edition ).

Panorama View from Jiufen (九份), Taiwan

Four pictures were taken with iPad2 and stitched together with the help of computer software.

Date and time taken : 29 July, 2011 @ 1.46 pm

Final Result.

Pros and Cons of Monthly Rationing of Medicine

The HSA, Johor Bahru practices rationing of medicine, meaning you are only supplied enough medicine for one month if your window of prescription spans more than a month.

I have many discussions about this system with professional friends and the consensus is as follows:-

Pros

1. The Ministry of Health does not require to stock large quantity of medicine. It is something like the practice of “just in time” in manufacturing industry.

2. It creates work for unemployed pharmacist as they require to do extra work every month, dispensing the same medicine to the same person every month, thus improving /achieving their performance in SKT.

3. It will attract more Q at the counter. The hospital can be proud to showcase their efficiency in solving the work load. In order words, the Hospital has more bargaining power in asking for more money and higher staffing when they prepare for annual budget.

4. When the patient is required to collect the medicine every month, it brings about many downstream economical activities such as:

• As the patient is required to make extra trip every month to the hospital either by driving or public transport, it indirectly thrives the viability of oil and public transport companies.

• The canteen in hospital also benefit from the influx of extra non doctor-seeking patients.

5. As most patients who require to depend on monthly ration of medicines are usually in the sunset window, most of them are either pensioners or jobless, so this monthly pilgrimage to hospital creates opportunity for them to while away their times.

6. It is observed that patients require monthly ration of medicine usually belong to those waiting for kindgom to come, therefore, by restricting the quantity of medicine dispensed, the hospital can cut wastage in case the patients answer a call from higher authority.


CONS

1. It creates unnecessary/artificial human traffic in the hospital.

2. It incurs extra financial load on pensioners / jobless as they have to spend extra money for their transport to hospital, not forgetting the wastage on petrol and the emission of carbon dioxide.


3. It creates artificial workload for the pharmacist. If a medicine can be dispensed, say, on two- or three-month interval, the pharmacist does not require to repeat the dispensing of same medicine every month but once in every two or three months. If the workload of pharmacist is reduced, then the justification for higher staffing of pharmacist can not be valid.

4. As most patients are suffering from the problem of mobility, they are usually required to be accompanied by their family members or friends in the collection of medicine. Some even may require to take leave in order to render this service. Clearly, the hospital does not take this into consideration.

5. Of course, the hospital argues that they provides sms and postal services for the delivery of medicine, I wonder , hitherto, how many patients make use of these activities.

Of course, the above lists are not exhaustive, I welcome more input from innovative readers.

An over zealous Pharmacist

If you are a regular receiver of monthly ration of medicine from HSA(JB), please do not q in from of this lady pharmacist (Pua). She wants solid proof of your activity/reason if your date of collection is not yet due.

I tried to collect my medicine yesterday ( 10 August) even though my due date for collection is on 28 August. I told her I needed to collect it earlier because I am going oversea soon. She wanted proof of air ticket. Air ticket? I just wonder when was the last time this pharmacist made an air travel. Has she not aware that airlines only issue e-tickets.

Clearly, the pharmacist is too over zealous on guarding the dispensary of aspirin and calcium supplement. Is this the intention of the Ministry of Health to inconvenient old patient like me? How often in your life that you are required to show documentary proof of your explanation ? Life is too complicated now.