Singporean whose passport was stamped wrongly at JB checkpoint urges travellers to always check

SINGAPORE: A man claimed that his passport was stamped with the wrong date at an immigration counter at Johor Bahru when he entered Malaysia recently. Unfortunately, the date marked on Tan Daniel’s passport showed Aug 3 instead of Sep 3. Having noticed it, he had it corrected right away.

Mr Tan posted a photo as proof on the 柔新关卡Both Checkpoint 分享站 Facebook page on Sep 4. It showed a passport page with two visit pass stamps, one on top of the other, from Malaysian immigration.

One was dated “03 Aug 2025” and the other was dated “03 Sep 2025,” but the one with the earlier date was crossed out by hand, and the word “VOID” was written over it.

Mr Tan considered himself lucky to have stopped by the roadside after clearing immigration in order to check his passport. Since he memorises checkpoint counter numbers out of habit, he was able to quickly find the woman who had stamped his passport.

However, when he approached her, he found her reaction to him upsetting. Instead of showing remorse for her mistake, he alleged that she had a look of “glee” or was “gloating.”

He claimed that she had told him, “Oh, it’s the wrong month,” and then stamped his passport correctly before returning it to him.

And although he was none too happy about the encounter, Mr Tan was mindful not to offend her and thanked her anyway for helping him with the correct date.

“Otherwise, I’d have to pay S$1,000 before returning to Singapore, and S$2,000 for two,” he added.

He asked for his post to be shared as a reminder to everyone to be mindful to check that their passports are stamped correctly.

However, based on the comments on his post, it seems that he’s not the only person to whom this has happened.

A commenter named Jessie Ng wrote that this happened to her and six others with whom she was travelling on the same day that Mr Tan also travelled, Sep 3.

“We reported this to the Malaysian border control staff when we returned the same day,” Ms Ng wrote, adding a photo of her passport showing an entry date of Aug 3 and an exit date of Sep 3.

An observant commenter noted that the passports of Ms Ng and Mr Tan were likely to have been stamped at the same counters.

/TISG

Read also: Singaporean woman stuck in Malaysia for 4 days after losing her passport; dodges 4 months wait after pleading at immigration office