Police deployed to Simba outlet in Serangoon after long queues form for promotion, many abruptly turned away

Chaos at Simba outlets across S’pore as large crowd queues for limited-time promotion

Over the weekend, local telco Simba rolled out an attractive limited-time promotion, but left many customers frustrated after being abruptly turned away after hours of queuing.

So intense was the discontent at the Serangoon outlet that the police arrived to handle the crowd, reported Shin Min Daily News.

Simba sends SMS to customers about promo

Simba customers had received an SMS about the promotion, where they could “recharge S$60 and get S$120 credits”.

However, this was only valid for a short timeframe of one hour, from 3pm to 4pm, over three days from Friday to Sunday (12 to 14 Dec).

The SMS said customers could visit “any Simba Service Centre” and provided a link which listed 18 of them.

However, some customers told Shin Min they had received the SMS only on Saturday (13 Dec) morning and rushed to a service centre, only to find hundreds of people already in the queue.

Snaking queues at Simba outlets across S’pore

On Saturday, numerous netizens reported snaking queues at Simba outlets across Singapore.

Some of the queues stretched across floors, with no end in sight, leading some people to give up.

Those queueing outdoors in Bedok remained despite the heavy downpour.

Some netizens said they saw many seniors in the queue despite the rainy weather.

One user described the queue at Thomson Plaza as “pure madness” and doubted that everyone in line would be served in just one hour.

Woman fails to get promo despite queueing for over 2 hours

At the Simba outlet in Serangoon Bus Interchange, the mood was more chaotic.

39-year-old Ms Ke (transliterated from Mandarin) told Shin Min that she arrived there at 2.45pm and queued till 5pm.

However, she was unable to secure the deal, as staff informed her the system had closed, leaving her and those behind disappointed.

Police arrive after crowd starts arguing with staff

As frustration boiled over, some in the crowd started arguing with the staff.

This resulted in the police arriving at the scene at about 5.05pm, Ms Ke said.

Despite those who had queued up wanting answers, the staff told them to come back tomorrow and closed the shutters.

When reporters visited the outlet on Sunday (14 Dec), staff confirmed that the police arrived to mediate the dispute, after which the staff closed the shutters.

However, they declined to comment further.

A worker at a nearby shop said many people were angry and accused the outlet of “scamming customers”, and the situation started getting out of control.

This prompted the police to deploy about 10 officers.

Similar disappointment at other outlets

A similar story reportedly took place at other outlets.

69-year-old retiree Mr Hu, who was queueing at Canberra Plaza, said he was told just before 4pm that his transaction could not be processed.

They were then told to come back the next day at 9am, prompting a commotion.

49-year-old Ms Yang, who was at Orchard Central, said staff stopped the queue at 3.05pm.

“People started queueing at 12 noon and staff were even livestreaming the promo at 2pm,” she added. “Everyone thought they would be able to snag the offer as long as they were in the queue.”

However, they stopped processing orders before 4pm, she claimed.

63-year-old retiree Mdm Xie complained of poor queue management, with nobody informed of the expected waiting time.

Ms Ke at Serangoon said there was insufficient staffing, with only one employee initially handling top-ups.

Netizens complain about timing, lack of online top-up

Netizens who commented on Simba’s Facebook page also had much to gripe about.

Most of them had issues with the timeframe, with one claiming they received three messages with missing or conflicting timings.

Another expressed confusion, claiming that the timing was different on the website, and bemoaned that one hour was not enough.

Echoing these sentiments, a commenter said there were too many customers to squeeze into one hour, especially considering that they were strictly turned away after 4pm.

A user lamented that she was “told to leave the queue” as she had missed the timeslot.

Several netizens asked why they could not top up their cards online to snag the deal, pointing out that this would avoid long queues forming.

Also read: Long Queues At MBS & ION Orchard For Omega-Swatch Collab, Police Officers Deployed

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Featured image adapted from Shin Min Daily News on Facebook, Singapura Channel on Facebook and Lim Sok Cheng on Facebook.