Over 20 months’ jail for maid agency worker who cheated clients out of S$92,000

SINGAPORE: A Malaysian man who worked for an agency for domestic helpers was given a sentence of 20 months and two weeks’ jail on Jan 5 (Monday) after pleading guilty to one charge of cheating. This plea covered 72 separate occasions.

Chai Song Lin, who had worked as an assistant manager at the agency, deceived clients into depositing their payments into his personal PayNow account. According to a report in CNA, he offered a QR code to them as well, for the same purpose of transferring payments.

He managed to cheat the agency and its clients of over S$92,000, changing the name of his PayNow account to make it seem that it belonged to the company he worked for.

The 45-year-old Chai started working as an assistant manager at 1st Allbest Human Resource in June 2022. His duties involved getting clients by telling them about what the company offered. He also facilitated the clients’ deposits and processing fees.

These payments were usually made via cash, bank transfers, PayNow, or a Nets payment machine at the office and were made out to the bank account of 1st Allbest Human Resource.

In September 2024, he changed his personal PayNow account, which had been named “Derek,” to “1st Allbest Human Resource” and told clients to make their payments to this account, claiming that it belonged to the company. Moreover, he also provided them with a QR code for payments using his own account.

The name “1st Allbest Human Resource” showed up when the QR code was scanned.

All in all, there were over 40 people who fell for Chai’s duplicity, and over a period of five months, a total of S$92,508.40 in amounts from S$50 to S$3,500 was deposited into his account. From this amount, he transferred S$3,800 to the company’s account, to show that he was making money for 1st Allbest Human Resource.

By early March 2025, his superior asked him why he had such a high sales record, but the income he generated was low. At first, he lied, saying that the clients had been tardy in making payments.

However, his superior told him he would check with the clients on their payments, and Chai finally came clean, saying he took the payments for himself.

The CNA report said that he paid the company back S$10,000 the day after being confronted by his superior. His conviction for cheating multiple times could have meant a jail sentence of as long as 20 years, as well as a fine. /TISG

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