SINGAPORE: A woman received a lot of attention after her May 20 LinkedIn post raving about a chance encounter with Piyush Gupta went viral, only for the former CEO of DBS Bank to chime in that it had been a case of mistaken identity.
“Sorry to disillusion you. That isn’t me!” he wrote, referring to a photo that Janney Hujic, the founder of Impact-Driven Retreats & Expeditions, had put up.
The following day, the man who had actually been in the photo, a 58-year-old Singaporean named Kumar H Subramaniam, set the record straight in comments on a Facebook post from Wake Up, Singapore.
On May 22, a message from Ms Hujic’s team was posted in the comments to say that she was on an expedition in Vietnam but would tell her side of the story when she returned.
She spoke to 8World News, which on May 24 reported Ms Hujic as saying that her social media manager in the Philippines had put up the viral post without permission to generate traffic.
The social media manager allegedly asked Ms Hujic for S$5,000 in return for taking down the post after changing the password so Ms Hujic would lose access to it.
A screenshot of the alleged messages from the social media manager was shown on the 8World News report.
One part says, “Post has over 6k engagement. Pay me 5k SGD and I take down… When I get paid, I give you back access.”
The infamous LinkedIn post was taken down on May 23, with Ms Hujic’s partner allegedly paying the amount demanded.
Ms Hujic said that she had hired her social media manager, who was supposed to receive S$1 for every like on LinkedIn and Instagram posts, in March. She added that she knew the man she took a photo with had not been Mr Gupta, but she shared it on a group chat with friends and on an Instagram post merely as a joke.
The LinkedIn post was put up after she left for her Vietnam trip on May 19, and she did not realize what had happened until May 24.
On another note, the post said that Ms Hujic had told “Mr Gupta” about her upcoming all-women expedition in Mongolia to support the Goh Chok Tong Enable Fund. The fund wrote in another LinkedIn post that Ms Hujic and her company were not SG Enable’s authorised fundraising partners, and it had not endorsed their fundraising campaign.
Commenters have had a field day with the story, with some expressing doubts and raising questions about why Ms Hujic would need a social media manager to begin with, if they were really paid the rate she quoted, and whether she’s not just doing damage control at this point.
“No one pays a social media manager a dollar per like,” one observed.
“The hole she digs gets deeper and deeper,” wrote another.
“Maybe the social media manager would come out and say, ‘That manager is not me!’” quipped a Facebook user.
Nevertheless, others pointed out that she’s certainly increased her profile, with one writing, “Good or bad, she sure has gotten tons of publicity on her now.”
Others wondered why her partner, who had not been on the Vietnam trip with Ms Hujic, did not release a statement to clarify the matter, but instead chose to quietly pay the social media manager.
“Also, never heard of this feature called ‘reset password’ where they can use your registered email or your registered phone number to reset your password yourself? Or is it the social media manager also got access to her email and phone?” one added.
A Reddit user called the whole saga “The LinkedIn version of ‘my dog did it’.”
“Just say sorry,” another suggested, while one wrote, “This is getting more pathetic by the minute… just cut your losses, bide your time, and hope that in five to 10 years people mostly forget about it.” /TISG