If the shop's salesmen are hanging around outside their shop approaching tourists or potential customers, calling out "best price for you", holding calculators and blocking your way, stay away.
Their full-time job is just luring you into the shop with ridiculously low prices before ripping you off. For some tourists, the physical impact of seeing the so-called "cheap price" on the calculator is often too tempting to resist. Remember - if its too good to be true, it probably is.
Another common tactic used by rogue salesmen is pressure. When the customer senses something is wrong and starts to resist, other salesmen walk over and start to convince him - not very gently - that he needs to buy the product. Before long, you find yourself being harassed by everyone in the shop - lone shoppers are the prime target for this tactic.
Don't fall for the "freebies" trick - most cameras, for example, already come in a set from the supplier with freebies like memory cards, screen protectors, and extra batteries included in the deal. Some Sim Lim vendors will claim they are throwing in these "extras" at their own cost, or even replace the original extras with cheap, parallel imported equivalents.
"I bought an Olympus Camera from a Sim Lim vendor and he said he would be throwing in a "free" 8GB memory card. I only found out later that Olympus was already having a promotion including the card and that instead of giving me the good quality Sandisk original, I received a cheap no-brand one that spoiled within a week," said undergraduate Tan Pei Ling, 22.
For hand phones and items like PSPs or handheld games, unethical salesmen claim that their item is cheaper because it is "parallel-imported" from China and Japan and thus require an "unlocking fee" to make it compatible for use in Singapore. This so-called unlocking fee can range from $20 to $100, and will never be charged by authorised retailers.
So you've checked the brand, you've haggled on the price, and you think you finally got a good deal. But don't be too sure - some vendors in Sim Lim buy back second hand cameras, phones, and even smaller items like memory cards and printer cartridges, then polish them up and sell them as new.
Common horror stories include printer cartridges which only work for a week before going empty, memory cards which already have some one else's photos on them, and hand phones which already have a strangers' personal contacts.
"I bought a "new" DSLR, and brought it home only to find that it was not working properly and the photos were all blurry. When a photographer friend of mine inspected the camera, he told me that some of the parts were old, some were new, as if someone had taken parts from different cameras and put it all together. I was totally shocked," said swimming instructor Daniel Lee, 35.
A tip from vendors: The product you look, check, and use at the counter may be swapped between counter to cashier. Make sure that you can personally see the same item being packed into your shopping bag as the one you have examined. Do not be distracted - some rogue salesmen try to get your attention as they swap it by taking out freebies or other items.
With kids zipping back and forth and bemused parents and teachers looking on, the program is among the more elaborate attempts to teach children to become financially literate.
April is holy month for the financial literacy movement that has swept the nation in the past decade, as state and federal government, nonprofits and financial firms launch town hall meetings, task forces, fairs, forums, quiz bowls, and high school visits.
There is, however, a problem with this well-intentioned effort to teach youngsters personal finance: Educators haven't found an approach that clearly works.
Repeated research has shown that classroom personal finance instruction does not translate into financial literacy or wiser financial decisions. Students don't remember what they learn, and the lessons become outdated too quickly.
Willis said programs that get students to interact with the material can work better. That's the idea with BizTown, as well as a program Junior Achievement runs that lets ninth-graders compete in a computer business simulation.
"That experiential model is really what sets Junior Achievement apart," said Gina Blayney, president of Junior Achievement of the Upper Midwest. "We put them into a competitive environment."
Other models that have been successful include cooperation from parents, and giving students the skills to find and analyze information on their RFID tag.
But while few would dispute that too many American high school graduates lack the skills to navigate their finances, many experts argue that financial literacy education has more work to do to remedy the problem.
The Jump$tart Coalition, a group that's been widely credited with popularizing financial literacy training and pushing April as a month to emphasize it, was formed in late 1996 by a coalition that included banking and credit card industry groups, the Federal Reserve Board, the National Council on Economic Education and Junior Achievement, among others.
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