SINGAPORE: Singapore is known to be one of the safest countries in the world, where people have left their laptops, purses, backpacks, keys, and other items of value in eateries, especially for the purpose of “chope”, letting people know they’re reserving these spaces.
A big part of the reason why people feel so safe to leave their valuables unattended is that there are an estimated one million CCTV cameras installed around the city-state, many of which are used by the authorities to aid investigations.
When a diner left his wallet and mobile phone to reserve a place at what appears to be a food court in a mall, a local Reddit user took a photo of this and posted it with the caption, “Only in Singapore.”
The Oct 22 post has since gone viral on r/Singapore, receiving many comments.
One wrote that he saw someone actually using a credit card for chope purposes at a hawker centre, while another said they saw someone using their identity card (IC) at a McDonald’s outlet to do the same.
Others warned against this, though, as someone with ill intentions could take photos of the front and back of the cards and use them online.
Another said this should only be done when the credit card is expired, but even this is less than safe.
Others said they’d seen office access lanyards and car keys used to chope places.
Read related: Swiss woman says, in SG, queueing, chope, Singlish, calling people “Uncles & Aunties” are ‘bizarre Singaporean habits’
However, some Reddit users, including the post author, said they would never leave their wallet or phone unattended in public.
If they really have nothing they can safely leave on a table, one commenter says he removes his phone casing and uses that.
Others chimed in to suggest umbrellas and, of course, the most popular chope tool—tissue packets.
Still, some argued that leaving valuables in public does not necessarily happen only in Singapore, citing cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi as places where people leave their laptops in food courts regularly.
Others wrote that Japan, Korea, Switzerland, and Scandinavian countries are also equally safe.
Some commenters warned, however, that if people leave things in places where there are no cameras, such as toilets, in Singapore, chances increase that these could be stolen,
“Don’t change, Singapore,” one Reddit user wrote.
Featured photo above: Reddit screengrab/u/woonsc /TISG