Customer accidentally pays $650 for $6.50 lor mee, praises honest hawker for refund
A regular customer accidentally paid $650 for a $6.50 bowl of lor mee, but the honest hawker did not simply keep the money.
Instead, the stallholder alerted his bank and had to wait nearly a month before finally getting the chance to return the $643.50 overpayment.
According to Shin Min Daily News, the incident happened at Kai Fa Signature Lor Mee, located at a coffee shop at Block 109 Bukit Purmei Road.
Facebook user Aud Chang said he visited the stall in July and accidentally paid $650 instead of $6.50 after getting the decimal point wrong while keying in the amount on his payment app.
Fortunately, the stallholder eventually returned the money, prompting Chang to thank him publicly for his honesty in a Facebook post.
Shin Min contacted the customer but had not received a response at the time of publication.
Hawker contacted bank upon discovering payment
When Shin Min reporters visited the lor mee stall, 48-year-old stallholder Vincent See confirmed the incident.
He recalled that the regular customer had visited one day last month and ordered takeaway lor mee. He then scanned the QR code to make payment before leaving.
Later, while checking his accounts, See was shocked to discover that $650 had been transferred to the stall.
A bowl of lor mee costs just $6.50.
See suspected that the customer had accidentally entered the wrong amount, but there had been many customers that day and he could not remember who had made the payment.
With no way to identify the customer from the transaction, he approached his bank to explain that the $650 was not his and that he wanted to return it.
This was so that the bank would know of his intentions in case the customer later contacted them regarding the payment.
See then waited for the customer to come forward.
Customer returns weeks later
About three to four weeks later, the regular customer finally returned to the coffee shop after coming back from an overseas trip.
He had apparently left Singapore shortly after buying his lor mee. Only after checking his bank account later did he realise that $650 was missing.
Suspecting that he had accidentally paid too much for his meal, he returned to the coffee shop, hoping that See would still have the money.
After verifying the customer’s details, the stallowner returned the remaining $643.50 to him, after deducting the $6.50 cost of the lor mee.
The customer praised See for his honesty and even returned to the stall again on Aug 19 to take a photo with him.
Wife taught him lor mee recipe
See has been running the lor mee stall on his own after taking over his wife’s recipe three years ago.
He said his wife had learnt how to make the lor mee from someone else before passing the recipe and skills on to him.
While the couple initially ran the stall together, See now operates the store alone due to his wife’s health condition.
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