Money Changer at Lot 1

A post about:

A R J Money Changer at 21 Choa Chu Kang Ave 4 #03-K1 Lot 1 Shoppers' Mall

and I'm all out to tell friends and people NOT TO CHANGE THEIR MONEY THERE! If you are at Lot 1 and desperately need to change money, you can try the one at the basement. I should have done my research before deciding to change as SGForums claims the rates are better for the money changer at basement too.

Let me relate to you my bad experience with them.

I was walking around lot 1 after dinner when I suddenly remembered that I've forgotten to change money for my Hong Kong Grad Trip No. 2 due to fly off the next day at night. It was fortunate that I remembered, coz tomorrow's gonna be a very packed day and it will be difficult to drop by any money changer. (that's why I havent had the chance to do any research)So I simply went to ARJ Money Changer with $600 to be changed into HKD.

They way ARJ works is that they have three counters. Counter 1 and Counter 2 is in charge of collecting and counting the money. They run your money in a automated money counter machine, keep the money, then hand write the amount you are going to change on your queue ticket. (Yes you have to get a queue ticket which the number jumps by the second you miss your queue number. There was a frustrated lady before me who missed the queue as they didn’t bother to wait for her for more than 3 seconds. I almost missed mine simply coz a guy in front of me was making way for me to get to the counter.) I had mine written in hand as $600 -> HKD. Then you have to proceed to the third counter – the checkout counter along the lane to collect the money you want to change into.

Meanwhile, the money is being hand passed from counter 1 to counter 2 then to the checkout counter. While I was waiting for my turn at the checkout counter, I was called back to counter 1, saying that I gave them ONLY $550, not $600. I was however, very sure that I gave them $600 and even saw the machine that the lady ran the money through stating 6 * $50 notes! What’s more, it was the same lady who HANDWROTE the $600 on my queue ticket to acknowledge that I gave her $600. I told her I gave her $600 and she started looking for that missing $50.

After sometime, when it was apparent she could not find it, she wrote me another piece of paper $550. NOW I AM FURIOUS! They lost my $50, and tried to say that I gave them only $550! What kind of outrageous nonsense is this! I still have that queue number stating $600 given to them to be changed into HKD in my hands! And now she is trying to make me take that hand written piece of paper to say that I gave them $550!!!

I told her no. I am not touching that paper. "I gave you $600, and you lost a $50 note. And now you are trying to say that I gave you $550!" So she took that $550 stack of notes, counted it several times, run thru the machine several times just to show me that its $550. How dumb. Of course it’s going to stay as $550! Money doesn’t grow out of money by itself! To make matters worse, she had a Big Guy as reinforcement behind her, telling me to shut up and pointed at the machine that says $550. "You only gave $550. Not $600. Look at the machine! It says $550."

"Of course the machine says $550! Your staff lost $50! Look at this piece of paper. Isn't this her hand writing? She wrote $600 and I left for the collection counter. Would she have written $600 if there was only $550? And now she is trying to give me another paper that says I gave her only $550, when I gave her $600!" AND I was asked to shut up again. I was ready to call the police.

After 10 minutes of arguing, looking for the lost $50 and recounting that stack of $550 that’s gonna stay the same no matter how many times you count it, the smarter looking counter 2 then found the missing $50. ON THE FLOOR!!!! Then they smile at each other... smile at me...smile smile... Ha-Ha-Ha.

Just keep away from that A R J money changer. I will not be the only one to have such a bad experience under their terrible system and service.