Being in the vicinity, I often use the Clementi MRT station. Not very surprisingly, there is a McDonald's near the entrance. The place teems with mostly students and a few adults. I guess that's not very surprising, but what shocked me is not this.

I was curious enough to pop my head into McDonald's one Monday evening. I happened to overhear a conversation between two students.

One said: 'I am so glad that we can use these ez-link cards to buy stuff at McDonald's. My parents will never know.'

I was appalled. Talk about dishonesty!

Yes, I don't doubt the usefulness of the ez-link card, but if it teaches students to be dishonest then I'm not so sure.

I think it was a really big mistake for McDonald's to allow payments to be made via the ez-link card.

For most students in Singapore, it is their parents who top up their cards. So who is paying for the junk they buy at McDonald's? The parents!

I am not so sure about the parents' opinion on the child's trip to McDonald's, but judging by what that girl said, she wasn't supposed to be there.

I know it isn't a very convincing argument if I base it upon evidence of what I heard from one person, but I didn't just hear one person.

For five subsequent days, I returned there, and heard basically the same thing from five different people.

Also, I stood for 10 minutes near the counter, and observed how people paid: cash or ez-link. Not surprisingly, many of them were using the ez-link card. Most of them were primary and secondary school students. They could be paying by ez-link for mainly two reasons:

>>They weren't supposed to be there and couldn't let their parents know that they spent money, for they will probably ask how they spent it.

>>They had exhausted their allowance, and had to therefore use the money stored in their ez-link card.

Well, I guess I can't say much more than to appeal to the public to encourage their kids to be honest in this field, and, secondly, I am appealing to McDonald's to stop allowing payments via ez-link.

Venketasubramanian Jayashri S