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-- ST PHOTO: LIM CHIN PING
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STANDING at 1.52m, Ms Tan Geok Hoon, dressed in a simple top and jeans, is not someone you would notice in a crowd.
But the 43-year-old sales manager has become a mini celebrity in cyberspace after she took on mobile phone giant Nokia over a faulty phone and won.
Netizens are now hailing her as a consumer hero - she showed up at Nokia's Alexandra Road office with a bailiff and threatened to seize its assets.
Ms Tan's Internet posting about her experience in the forum of Singapore Press Holdings' online portal AsiaOne on Feb 17 has been picked up by Gizmodo, a popular New York-based website about gadgets. Her story was also reported in the local media.
Fresh from her victory, she has set up an online forum for fellow consumer victims to share their stories.
Using her username 'lousyexperience', she has registered a domain www.lousyexperience.com and plans to help others deal with their 'lousy' consumer experiences - free of charge.
'Life is full of stress. We have work stress, family stress, relationship stress. Now, if you spend money and buy things, there is stress too. It's unfair, right?' she asks rhetorically.
Despite the fiery talk, she says that she is no trouble maker. She just wanted Nokia to pay her $778 - the full retail price - for the faulty E61i phone she bought last August.
The seven-month battle, which involved the Small Claims Tribunal, culminated in her showing up at the Nokia office on Feb 11 with a bailiff.
She recalls: 'It was the fifth day of Chinese New Year, the auspicious day when most companies reopen their offices. It is considered very 'suay' if something like this happens on that day.' Suay is bad luck in Hokkien.
'But I didn't choose the date, it was given to me by the courts.'
Nokia has expressed regret that the matter was not settled amicably.
Nokia Singapore's general manager Grant McBeath says that since Feb 18, there has been 'a handful' of claims filed against it and that the company is dealing with all claims.
Ms Tan, who lives alone in a five-room HDB flat in the East, is well versed with her consumer rights. She has a long history of lodging complaints with the Small Claims Tribunal.
When she was the general manager of a manufacturing company, she made about 10 claims for repayment of money on behalf of her then employer. Before her case against Nokia, she had also made three personal claims - two were over consumer products and one was to obtain a beauty course certificate owed to her.
'I have a 100 per cent success rate,' she says with a smile.
Her most recent successful claim was against a company in the United States.
Last September, she learnt of an online investment company based in the US which promised a US$1 million (S$1.4 million) return within three years if she pumped in a certain amount of money.
'The risk factor of online investments is 100 per cent,'' she acknowledges. 'But I still went for it because I'm a risk taker.'
True enough, the website disappeared from cyberspace about a week after she sent over a cheque. She lodged a complaint with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The US authorities managed to crack the investment fraud case; her cheque was seized and returned to her before it was cashed.
She says: 'I believe in consumer rights.''
munsan@sph.com.sg
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