If you're not asian and happen to be at Crystal Mall please becareful shopping there, my friend got ripped off almost pretty badly when she went by herself.

She decided to go last month to get a Coach purse for herself since it's her birthday, the one she saw for display at the store window was the real authentic thing, however when she went in and asked the lady for it, the lady gave her a fake one in a dustbag and box. Unfortunately she didn't notice it until she went home to take a closer look, the one she got was nothing like the on display in the store window, it was obviously made of a much cheaper material and the "C"'s were uneven. When she went back to return it the lady absolutely refused to give the money back saying that the bag for display and hers is the exact same thing. In the end she called me to the store and asked me to speak to the lady, the lady imediately pretended not to understand cantonese even though I was there a few weeks ago to buy a scarf and back then she spoke perfect canto to me. I started talking to her in really broken down mandarin and she had the nerve to laugh at me for it, finally I muttered that I was going to go to the police in canto and she quickly changed her tone. She gave my friend a full refund and offered her 50% the next bag she buys from the store for that "little misunderstanding" as she calls it.

I forgot the store name but it is in the first floor on the other side of crystal mall away from the marketplace. When I went back today her store was closed, hopefully for good.

I'm shocked at what these people think they can pull on non-asian people, this isn't the first time this has happened to someone I know.

Another time was when my friend was trying to bargain for a dress, the storekeeper refused to lower the price but when my other friend who was japanese went in later and asked for the lower price, the storekeeper took $50 off of the price and even offer to throw in a free scarf for her.

I find that most of these asian places feel that non-asian people are easy to rip off so they do it and usually get away with it. =\

Anyways here are some tips to bargaining at asian places:
- mostly only chinese owned stores allow bargaining (they cheat their taxes) so ask for a lower price especially if you are buying more than several items at their place, they even deliberately have higher prices on the items so you can't ask for too much off of the clothing or whatever.
- the japanese and korean stores in crystal mall don't allow bargaining too much unless you are buying alot, this is because they have their items shipped from Japan and Korea which costs them more
- if you really want something but don't want to pay the ridiculous $50 overprice for it, be confident, don't use "may I get a discount", try "do I get a discount if I buy ____ and ____ together"
- Crystal mall as well as Parker place mall in richmond allow bargaining (most chinese run malls do)
* I brought 3 belts priced at $15 each for $9 in total at a store once, bargaining is a given, you would have to be a fool to pay full price

And becareful when buying name brand stuff at Crystal mall (or any other asian malls for that matter), after this incident with my friend I realize that some stores have bad quality fakes, really good quality fakes and the authentic thing, which they will give you depending on whether they feel they could trick you.