THE American tourist felt he had been overcharged for his crab dish.
So he wrote to the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), hoping it would investigate on his behalf.
Instead, a customer service officer from STB included the restaurant manager in the e-mail correspondence, asking him to look into the case and get back to the tourist.
The tourist became even more unhappy that his personal information and contact details - in the form of his e-mail address and a copy of his e-mail complaint - had been leaked.
'I had never expected you to place me in direct contact with this individual, exposing my personal information to him. What will be the repercussions from this?' Mr John Colonna wrote in his blog.
STB has since come forward to 'sincerely apologise' to him.
The board's executive director of communications & human resources, Mr Muhammad Rostam Umar, said the customer service officer's act of providing the restaurant with Mr Colonna's contact details so that the two parties could talk about the issue directly was not in line with 'the usual mediation process'.
'For that, we sincerely apologise to Mr Colonna,' said Mr Umar.
Adjusting mediation process
He said STB will be 'tightening up our mediation processes to ensure that this does not happen again'.
The incident began when Mr Colonna, together with three friends, visited Fuqing Marina Bay Seafood Restaurant in Boat Quayon 27 Jun.
They had ordered a chilli crab meal for three people, and Mr Colonna claimed that 'no price was indicated until we received the bill'. The price was $210, for the single crab that made the meal.
On his blog, Mr Colonna complained about the high price. He said he 'haggled with the manager' and succeeded in reducing the price of the crab to $165.
Mr Colonna sent an e-mail to the STB on 29 Jun to detail his 'unpleasant dining experience'.
An STB customer service officer replied on 30 Jun, saying he had included Fuqing's manager, Mr Joel Lim, in the e-mail correspondence, and had asked Mr Lim 'to look into (the) case and get back to (Mr Colonna)'.
Unhappy over the way his complaint had been handled, Mr Colonna wrote on his blog that he was 'rather disappointed with the service quality here in Singapore', and that he would 'communicate this experience to his friends wherever they may be'.
In his reply, STB's Mr Umar explained that STB was not an enforcement agency and did not control pricing of goods. But it urged all establishments to clearly explain costs and total bill estimates to consumers, especially tourists who may be unfamiliar with pricing structures, so that misunderstandings can be avoided.
With Fuqing, STB has since asked the restaurant 'to be clearer in explaining their prices to patrons'.
Fuqing was in the news earlier this month for charging Italian artiste Ennio Marchetto $525 for a meal that included pepper crabs.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
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