Online supermarket apologises for confusing residents who mistook their 'GDC vouchers' for scam

Online supermarket GaiGai apologised after residents in Hougang and Serangoon were left baffled after receiving promotional mailers about 'Goodwill Disbursement Credits (GDC) vouchers.

Several Stompers alerted Stomp to the flyers that said each "identified household" would receive $55 worth of GDC vouchers to purchase their daily essentials to celebrate the nation's birthday.

To redeem the vouchers, residents would have to download the GaiGai app and provide their email address.

Because the GDC vouchers appeared similar to the Community Development Council (CDC) vouchers, some residents mistook the marketing campaign for a scam.

CDC vouchers are distributed by the Government to each Singaporean household to help with daily expenses as part of the Household Support Package. 

In a Facebook post on Monday (Aug 8), GaiGai clarified that they are indeed a legitimate business in Singapore.

"We would wish to clarify that we DO NOT REPRESENT ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY, nor are we in any way affiliated to any Government body," the post said.

"We acknowledged that our GDC Voucher marketing campaign has misled certain residents into thinking that we are associated to the Government and we deeply apologize for that matter.

"Rest assured we are not scammers and our $55 vouchers is indeed legitimate.

"We do sincerely want to do our part to all residents of Singapore by helping to ease the current inflation cost of our daily needs items.

"We hereby sincerely apologized for any confusion caused to anyone during this time.

"We seek to improve our marketing and delivering the best services to our supporters."

They ended their statement by wishing Singapore a happy 57th birthday.