SINGAPORE: A foreign domestic helper in dire need of funds for her parent’s surgery took to social media asking other helpers if it was a good idea to borrow from her employer.
In a post to a support group for domestic helpers, the woman asked others if she should ask for an advance salary from her employer for her parent’s surgery. “I don’t know where to get the amount for the said operation,” she wrote. The helper added that she was exhausted as the sole breadwinner in her family.
Others who commented on the post wrote that she could approach her employers, but said that they were not obliged to lend her money. Here’s what they said:
Earlier this year, a foreign domestic helper who used her work permit to take a loan for another maid complained that the latter never intended to pay her back.
Another helper mentioned her problem in a post to Facebook group FDW in Singapore. She wrote that her friend, T, used her work permit to borrow money for L, another helper. While the amount was not disclosed in the post, the maid shared that T had to pay a monthly interest rate on top of the amount she had to return.
“( L) doesn’t give any amount to pay the loan. So (T) so worried that the loan is increasing and this is credit to her name… (T) is a helper who have a good heart and the intension is pure to help( L) because they came also at the same Country and village and she is a friend too of( T) but( L) is a Scammer, a user and a liar etc”, the maid wrote in the post.
She then asked netizens for advice on how to help T get the money back from L. She said L became difficult to reach when they tried to contact her. She added that neither she nor T knew L’s address.
“is it possible to find her (L’s) address, and to make aware her employer about her helper? And to hold her salary to pay her loan to( T),” the maid asked.
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