THREE days after Mr Tommy Lim took over a Chinatown tailoring business, an American tourist walked in and bought $17,000 worth of items, including suits, jackets and shirts.
But Mr Lim is now in a bind after the tourist did not take the delivered goods and then cancelled his credit card payments.
Complicating matters is a credit card policy that frowns on split sales transactions.
One of Mr Lim's salesmen had swiped the tourist's credit card nine times in a single day.
On 18 Jan, the tourist had ordered five items from Jericho Tailor at Pagoda Street between 11.30am and 12.10pm.
His salesman swiped the credit card whenever the man bought an item, Mr Lim said.
He explained: 'The tourist bought something and when he was waiting for the contractor tailor to come and measure him, the salesman managed to sell him some more items.
'That's why there were separate transactions.'
That morning, there were five transactions.
At about 6.15pm, Mr Lim said, the tourist returned and ordered four more suits and the card was swiped four times.
In all, he spent about $17,000.
Mr Lim said that as the tourist was due to leave Singapore two days later, the suits were made on 'express service' and delivered to the hotel.
The suits were delivered to the hotel the next night, 19 Jan, before the man checked out on 20 Jan.
But, despite the hotel's efforts to contact him and messages left for him, the tourist did not collect the suits, Mr Lim claimed.
Mr Lim produced a letter from the Chinatown hotel, The Inn, which said its employee had contacted the guest when the goods arrived and even left messages for him, but there was no response.
The package is still at the hotel.
SPLIT SALES
Later, Mr Lim learnt that the bank would not pay him the money, apparently due to a 'split sales' issue.
He said that DBS bank - which owns the credit card point-of-sale terminal at the shop - told him that according to credit card rules, he could not split one payment into numerous transactions.
A bank officer even went to the shop to explain what it meant: That he is not allowed to swipe a customer's credit card more than once in a short span of time.
He was apparently told that even twice within a few minutes is not allowed.
Mr Lim said: 'This is not a case where the cost of one item was split into two. There were separate invoices for all the items that were bought.'
Mr Tommy Lin with credit card receipts for the items the tourist ordered.
The New Paper spoke to another tailor, Mr Bob Amarnani. He runs Maharaja's Tailors, which has a branch at Orchard Hotel and another at Raffles Place.
The 49-year-old said that he normally waits for his customers to complete their purchases before swiping the credit card.
He usually swipes a customer's credit card only once and has never encountered problems.
When told of this, Mr Lim said: 'We swipe the card when they buy a suit. Then, when they are waiting for the tailor to measure them, we try and sell them more things. That's why they buy more items.'
He added that customers would also sometimes pay for an item, then browse around and buy another item.
The bank is also withholding a $2,550 payment for two 'split sales' payments on 28 Jan.
Mr Lim said that in the 28 Jan case, the two customers had paid for their suits and then bought something else.
For one customer, there were just two transactions and for the other customer, there were three transactions. They had taken their goods.
But Mr Lim later received a letter from DBS saying he would be liable for the chargeback amount. A chargeback is a reversal of a credit-card transaction.
In all, he is out of pocket by $20,600.
Mr Lim ran a jewellery shop some years ago and he said he had never faced such an issue.
One of his salesmen, Mr Robert Deen, said: 'I've been a salesman in other tailor shops for 35 years and I've never come across this problem.'
When contacted, a DBS spokesman said of the first case: 'Based on Visa and MasterCard by-laws, there are two scenarios that the issuing bank would initiate a chargeback: Under split sales or under non-delivery of goods.
'Both conditions were met in this case.'
PAYMENT CANCELLED
It is understood that the tourist told the issuing bank of his credit card in the US to stop payment, with the reason that he did not receive the goods.
The bank spokesman said that both Mr Lim and the tourist have supporting documents and arguments.
'In any case, the issuing bank initiated a chargeback so we're not able to process the payment.'
When asked about its policy, a UOB spokesman said: 'Generally, split sales transactions are not encouraged and this is stipulated in the agreement with the merchant. This is because smaller-sized ticket items may circumvent risk-control parameters.
'Hence, if a fraud arises due to split-sales transactions, the merchant may be held liable for the fraudulent transaction.'
This article was first published by The New Paper on Mar 24, 2008.
