By Daisy CL Mandap
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| Tiger & Son's shop in North Point remains closed today |
Dozens of distraught customers of cargo company Tiger &
Son are set to go to the Consulate on Sunday, Jul 18, to ask for help in making
the owners of the company held liable for failing to send their boxes to the Philippines.
Tiger & Son Cargo Transportation Service Limited, which
was registered in Hong Kong only on Feb 22 this year, appears to have collapsed
on the weight of its operational expenses, resulting in its failure to pay its
forwarder and maintain its office in the Philippines.
Its promotional offers, including a buy-one, take-one-for-half price and a rebate of up to $110 for on-site packing; and rental for four shops
across Hong Kong, must have cut deeply into its earnings, even as the cargo
business continues to flourish despite the pandemic.
As a result, the boxes of goods which they had collected
from their clients who are mostly foreign domestic workers, had been held up at
the company’s warehouse in Laguna, Philippines,
or remain piled up in their shops in Hong Kong.
Its irate customers say that when they tried to contact the
company’s listed number in the Philippines,
they were told to pick up the cargo themselves and pay for the cost of
transporting them home as well.
“Yung nasa warehouse
nila April pa daw na pick-up dito,” said one angry customer who contacted
The SUN. (Those in their warehouse there were picked up in Hong
Kong as early as April).
Another said a relative who called up the company's Philippine office was told that it had closed down as well, and staff there had yet to be paid their salaries.
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| A flyer lists all of the company's shops and agents across Hong Kong |
"Hindi na po namin alam kung nasaan ang mga box namin, three months na. Sabi nasa Laguna daw. Yung may-ari dito hindi na ma contact. Ring lang nang ring ang cell phone nya, ayaw nang sumagot, said another. (We don't know anymore where our boxes are. They say they're already in Laguna. The owner can't be contacted here anymore. His phone just keeps on ringing and he doesn't pick up. )
"Ang mga shop nila closed nang lahat. Stressed na kami." (All their shops are closed. We're so stressed).
Boxes that are still in Hong Kong but have been paid for are piled up inside the shuttered shops of Tiger & Company originally located in four
districts: North Point, Kwai Chung, Tsuen Wan and Hung Hom. Customers who just want them back are also clueless as to how they could pull them out.
Their desperate customers have been staking out the shops, but nobody from the company had been to any of them in the past few days.
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| Angry customers post notice asking other complainants to meet tomorrow |
The company’s Facebook page, which until a few days ago was
still in operation, was shut down amid the deluge of complaints and bashings
from customers demanding updates on their cargo delivery, or compensation for
their losses.
Staff tried to fend off the complaints by posting pictures
of newly delivered boxes, and appealed to others who were venting their ire on
the social media site to calm down and delete their posts so as to defuse the
tension, to no avail.
The customers say Tiger & Company is owned by a certain
Glenn Calalang, who handled the Hong Kong
operations along with his partner and other family members. The Philippine
operation, which is based in Santa
Rosa, Laguna, is said to be run by his brother.
Several telephone numbers listed on its Facebook and
webpages are not being answered, or have been disconnected. A mobile number
listed in the name of "Chloe" was answered by a woman who said she no longer worked
for the company, and gave another number which however, was not picked up. A
customer said it was one of those used by Calalang.
As of Friday, the complainants said they had nowhere to go
to ask for help in at least getting back their boxes of goods, the contents of
which cost far more than the shipment fee collected by them by the company. They were also in grief over the amount of time and effort they had spent packing them.
A number of them have sent desperate messages to “Tulfo in
Action” in hopes of getting media influencer Raffy Tulfo to focus on their
plight. Others are preparing to go en masse to the Consulate early on Sunday,
hoping to get much-needed help.
Staff at the Consulate's assistance to nationals section say they are aware of the fiasco, and of the customers' plan to file formal complaints with them.
