Youth puts fake ‘out of order’ sign on Downtown East vending machine, business loses 5 days of sales
A small business owner was left baffled after a young boy allegedly placed an unauthorised “out of order” sign on its fully functioning vending machine at Downtown East, resulting in several days of lost potential sales.
The owner of Press On Me told Stomp that the incident involved its vending machine located at E!Hub in Pasir Ris.
The machine, which sells press-on nails, is normally replenished every 10 to 14 days.
However, the owner became suspicious after noticing that it had recorded almost no sales for several days.
“We came down a few days later to check what was happening and we discovered a paper stuck on our vending machine saying ‘OUT OF ORDER’,” she said.
However, the business had not put up the sign, and there was nothing wrong with the machine.
“The machine was NOT out of order,” she said. “It was working perfectly fine. Customers could still make purchases.”
A photo shared with Stomp that was taken on Aug 11 at about 7.57am shows the “out of order” sign covering a large portion of the machine’s touchscreen.
Youth caught on CCTV
The owner subsequently reviewed CCTV footage and said it showed a youth placing the piece of paper on the machine on Aug 8 at about 9pm.
She shared footage showing the youth approaching the vending machine before attaching the sign to its screen.
The owner said the business lost several days of potential sales before discovering what had happened.
“Because of that one piece of paper, we lost five days of sales,” she said.
“And honestly, we were lucky we discovered it early.
“If we had continued with our normal 10- to 14-day replenishment cycle without checking, the loss could have been much bigger.”
The owner said it was difficult to estimate the amount of revenue lost as there was no way of knowing how many purchases would otherwise have been made.
She added that the timing was particularly unfortunate as it was around the National Day long weekend, when there would normally be significantly larger crowds and higher foot traffic in the area.
“The loss is not only the sales we can see from the machine being affected, but also the potential sales during one of the busier periods,” she said.
‘Why did he do it?’
The business has since appealed for information about the youth seen in the CCTV footage.
“We are a small business,” the owner said. “Singapore is already a challenging place for small businesses to survive, and every day we work hard to keep things going,” the owner said.
She questioned what had motivated the youth to put up the sign.
“Why did he do it?” she asked.
“Was it just a prank? Was it mischief? Did someone ask him to do it? Did he understand that this could affect someone’s livelihood?”
The owner also questioned what lesson a young person should take away from an incident like this, describing it as a seemingly small act that could have a much bigger impact on a business.
She has since lodged a police report.
In response to a Stomp query, the police confirmed a report has been lodged, and they are looking into the matter.
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