YOU are either an hermit living in the urban jungle or totally sightless not to notice the mushrooming of various second-hand or surplus computer stores in many parts of the country today. 

Mostly owned or operated by Koreans, Indians and some Chinese, the presence of these ”surplus stores”  shows the big glut in computer production worldwide, such that actual marketing has reached the dime-a-dozen point. Why, in these retail outlets, a Pentium 3 fetches for just P11-thou or P12-thou — really a clear bargain!

This is a development that should, barring some legal issues on  licensing and distribution, prove a boon to the country’s  aspirations for  higher computer literacy among its young people.

Still, we can only wonder if the regulatory and supervisory bodies of government like the Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Education, Technical Skills and Development Authority, not to mention its internal revenue guys, are getting their acts together in, at the very least, monitoring units and products being sold by these  surplus outlets.

Our beef is this: With so much surplus products flooding the market (and we’re still not talking about import duties and fees here), how sure is the buyer he’s getting value for his money when he purchases any of these units, that he won’t end up acquiring a lemon for his hard-earned money?

So much has been said about third world countries serving as virtual dumpsites of inferior, sometimes even deadly, products from the developed nations we can only hope we are not getting a very raw deal from the opening of our trade borders. 

If you happen to have bought a lemon from these stores, let this blog know. Share us your comment — something we can build a good case on – if only to test whether our concerned agencies got what it takes to impose consumer laws, fair and square, or are themselves “lemons” in their mandated jobs.