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THE father panicked when he lost track of his 12-year-old boy while they were shopping at Mustafa Centre.
Fearing that his son might have been kidnapped, Mr Joe Tan, 61, a retiree, rushed to the centre's security office and pleaded with them to make an announcement on their public address (PA) system. What the security officer told Mr Tan shocked him - the announcement would be made only if he paid $5.
No reason was given for the fee.
Said Mr Tan: "I was outraged at first.
"I thought that making such an announcement should be a free service for shoppers."
But he eventually relented and paid the fee. And he found his son soon after the announcement was made.
Mr Tan had taken his wife and son to the shopping centre in Little India on Monday afternoon.
"We were buying some clothes for our upcoming trip overseas," he said.
"My son got bored, so I told him to go to the fourth floor to entertain himself."
But when Mr Tan, who had been shopping with his wife on the third floor, went to look for his son, the boy was nowhere to be found. And he was uncontactable because he had left his handphone at home.
"I'd heard of some cases of children simply disappearing and never being heard from again," he said. "I didn't dare to think too much about that possibility."
For 45 minutes, Mr Tan and his wife frantically searched all six floors of Mustafa Centre, with no luck.
He said: "I thought to myself, 'This is serious'."
With no idea where his son might have gone, Mr Tan finally approached the security office on the third floor for help.
No window shopper
That was when he was told about the $5 fee.
Said the man: "I told the security officer, I spent nearly $300 here. I'm not a mere window shopper."
But the security officer was unmoved, he said.
Mr Tan said that after he paid the fee, a Mustafa employee made the announcement over the PA system, telling his son to meet him at the computer section of the second basement level.
"When I went down to the second basement level, I saw my son running toward me almost immediately," he said.
"I was so relieved."
Mr Tan later found out that his son had been on the fourth floor all along, but he had been hidden behind a bookshelf.
When The New Paper called Mustafa Centre asking to speak to the management about the $5 fee, we were directed to the security office. They declined to comment.
So we sent a reporter to the store to pose as a customer who wanted to make an announcement on the PA system.
True enough, the security officer said that it would cost $5 to make the announcement.
He added that the fee was for a one-time announcement, and that additional payment would be required for subsequent announcements.
Management personnel at two other malls said that the PA system in their mall is used only in certain circumstances.
These include instances of illegal parking and when people lose their children or the elderly in the mall.
They do not charge for making these public service announcements.
To discourage any potential abuse of the PA system, the customer service officers said they would also use their discretion in distinguishing between genuine requests for help and pranks.
As for Mr Tan, he said that he is just relieved that nothing happened to his son.
"Of course, I'll make sure my son carries his handphone with him at all times from now on," he said.
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This article was first published in The New Paper.
