Hi,
I would like to share my recent experience with an electrician named Tan. He cheated my mother of $1450 and I don’t want anyone else to fall victim to his scam tactics so please be aware and help to spread the word.
The main power of our house had been shorting out at random times over the past week or so. My mother found Tan's ad for electrical services in the newspaper and called him to come and check what was causing this on 6 December.
He came over to our house and checked the main circuit board. He said it needed to be replaced and that it would cost $1450 to replace some circuit breakers and a copper wire. My mother said $1450 was very expensive and asked if he could give a discount. Tan refused repeatedly then started using scare tactics, saying the problem was “serious”, “the circuit breakers were all “black” and that “the house could have burnt down”. My mother is a retiree and she was alone at home that day. When she heard these things, she got scared and agreed to his price.
Tan then proceeded to replace the circuit breakers, but started displaying a lot of bizarre behaviour. He started complaining that the house was “very hot” and that he was “tired” then repeatedly stepped out of the house to the common corridor, saying he needed to “rest”.
He took a grand total of 30min, INCLUDING his repeated breaks of stepping out to “rest”, to fix the circuit board and said he would give her a one-year warranty on the circuit board parts he replaced.
After Tan left, my mother was very upset and called to tell me what happened. I was extremely angry that she did not call me earlier to discuss this, as I even though I am not familiar with an electrician’s typical pricing, I know that $1450 is a ridiculous amount to charge for less than 30min of work replacing a few circuit breakers and one copper wire. I would have told her to have at least gotten a second opinion and to definitely not agree to such an outrageous price.
I asked my mother why she agreed to Tan’s price and she said she got frightened when he said the switch board could catch fire and burn the house down.
Tan took advantage of my elderly mother, and the fact that she was alone at home with no one to help advise her that this was 1) an unreasonable price, 2) she should get a second quote, and used scare tactics to scam her. His tactic of scaring my mother into acceptance was completely unethical and the fact that he charged so much for such little work was so utterly reprehensible.
To make matters worse, the power in the house shorted out again the very next day – three times! When she called Tan to inform him and asked him to come back to check, he said he was busy settling “personal matters” and was not free to come back. He then had the audacity to tell my mother that the wiring of one of our electrical appliances may be faulty and we should “call an electrician” to “settle our problem” before calling him back.
My mother told me what he said and I was furious and shocked at the nonsense Tan was spewing. He is an electrician. He was hired to check and fix the electrical fault one day ago. He overcharges by a crazy amount and then it turns out the problem had not been fixed at all. Then he refuses to come back even and tells us to hire “an electrician”?! Where is the logic in that? Clearly he did not do a proper job in the first place and clearly he is not honouring the one-year warranty he guaranteed.
I asked my husband to call Tan to talk to him. Tan gave the same nonsensical answer that he was not free to come back until maybe one week later. Tan also said he would have to charge us again if he were to come back. My husband pointed out to Tan that it was his job to check everything that day to find what was causing the short circuits but he clearly didn’t do that and if so how he could have charged $1450. Tan insisted that was just for replacing the circuit breakers and that if we were not happy then “don’t call him back”. My husband told Tan that he was clearly cheating my mother of her money and if he refused to make good on his service and warranty, my husband would report this to the police and CASE. Tan then cursed my husband with a string of Hokkien vulgarities and hung up the phone.
This incident has left my whole family feeling cheated and scarred. Not only was my mother cheated of $1450, we now have to hire another electrician to do the work that Tan did not do in the first place. And my mother is ashamed that she got cheated by Tan and traumatised by all the lies and trouble this crook caused.
I’ve reported this incident to EMA and CASE, but CASE said it is unable to help because Tan is an individual not a company.
I’ve attached a pic of Tan’s newspaper ad. Please do not engage his services and fall victim like we. I do not wish for anyone else to get cheated by this crook and he needs to taken to task for scamming an elderly lady of so much money.
EO
