Customer asks Bukit Batok durian seller for refund, gets replacement set, complains again that fruit is sour

A customer who purchased five 500g boxes of durian from a Singapore retailer allegedly requested a refund twice after claiming the fruit was unsatisfactory.

The seller, Uncle Max of SYR Trading in Bukit Batok, recounted the incident in a TikTok video posted on Jun. 23.

According to Uncle Max, the customer ordered the five boxes of durian on Jun. 21 before requesting a refund, claiming the fruit was "unripe".

The seller then replaced the order with another five boxes of durian. However, the customer later sought a second refund, alleging that the replacement fruit was "sour".

First refund

A spokesperson from SYR Trading told Mothership that as a gesture of goodwill, Uncle Max had replaced all five boxes without dispute.

"What I always do is to make the customer happy. I try my best," Uncle Max said in his video.

The customer had initially claimed that most of his boxes were "unripe", adding that one box had been eaten by his "landlord", so it could not be inspected.

Despite not getting "complete evidence" of the customer's claim, the store said they chose to give the customer the benefit of the doubt and proceeded with the refund.

They had also expedited the replacement and arranged for their delivery partner to send a fresh set of durians directly from their shop.

Second refund

The store clarified that they offer replacements when customers provide photo evidence showing that the durians are either sour, unripe, watery, or damaged during delivery.

"Even if the issue isn't clearly visible in the photos, we will still give our customers the benefit of the doubt and honour the replacement," the store said.

Upon receiving the replacement, the customer went on the shop's TikTok livestream to praise them and said the replacement was "excellent".

However, five days later, he claimed that the durians in all of the replacement boxes were "sour", and requested a full refund on their TikTok shop.

"At that point, we felt we had already gone beyond our standard replacement policy by replacing the entire order in good faith," the store said.

"Our video was intended to provide our perspective on the incident and explain why we felt the situation was unfair after we had already gone above and beyond to resolve the customer's concerns."