I didn’t actually think Sim Lim Square (SLS) had that bad a reputation until I read about the 30% increase in complaints to CASE recently.
It seems the situation is so bad that the consumer association is about to launch an accreditation programme to clean up the Rochor Canal Road shopping complex, a famous hang-out for tech geeks and tourists alike who can spend hours trawling the six floors of  IT hardware and consumer electronics shops.
The mall has a dismal record — the number of consumer complaints against its shops has gone up for five years straight. Nearly 250 were filed with Case last year, 30 per cent more than in 2007. Sure, I’ve heard about one or two rotten eggs, but 250!  I’m now pretty sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Among the major complaints are customers being fleeced, salespeople making misleading claims and shops selling defective goods.
Recently, it was reported that someone ended up paying $950 for a PSP while it was quoted to him at $334. Although this particular case was more a theft than a con, it happened at SLS.
The more I dug into this issue, the more I started to find.
As far back as 2007, stories such as these were found on SGcafe Forums:

He first quoted me a price of $75 for the normal battery but further persuaded me to buy a higher capacity battery with longer battery life and comes with a warranty which we agreed at the price of $105 with GST. In total, I paid $525 for my PSP. Later, when I told my friends about this, they told me that I had been conned as the standard pack of PSP does include the battery and moreover, the so-called “high capacity” battery that I paid for was actually the normal battery that was available in all PSP package.

To which other members in the forum replied with:

S$525 for a PSP!? THAT’S DAYLIGHT ROBBERY!

As I did more research, I found out that tourists are more often than not the innocent victims. Many on TripAdvisor said the ”electronics sales people from hell” were not from Sim Lim Square but also Lucky Plaza.
Here’s an account from an Australian tourist this year:

Got ripped off when buying a Sony PSP. Shop was on the basement level of Lucky Plaza. I managed to get the guy to accept $165 SD for a PSP 2000, thought this was great.. He then said he had the latest PSP 3000 but would have to pay an extra $70-$80SD for it, on top of that he said we needed to have a modified chip put in so that games purchased in Australia or elsewhere would be compatible.  I then found out from a great games store in the new Orchard Plaza shopping centre that the PSPs or Nintendo DS are compatible in any country and did not need any type of modification chip.

In another account from a Filipino tourist last year:

My dad bought what was supposed to be an SLR camera (in Lucky Plaza)….Instead, the salesman sold him a camera that was released back in 2006. It wasn’t even an SLR camera. He assured him that it was a “100% SLR camera” but it turns out that it was just a complicated-looking digital camera. More than that, he overpriced it by S$600 dollars which is about US$400. It was awful.

While one could argue that these tourists should have done their homework first, I feel for those who are unable to fight for justice.
Do you have any horror stories to share from either Sim Lim Square or Lucky Plaza? Do you think CASE or the Tourism Board should do more to protect both local and foreign consumers alike?
Benjamin Koe is the co-founder of social media monitoring solutions provider, JamiQ. He was formerly a consultant with a global public relations firm, and before that a technology journalist.