Maid agency employee duped clients into paying S$92,000 into his own PayNow account, gets jail

SINGAPORE: An assistant manager at a maid agency got clients to make payments to his personal PayNow account after renaming the digital payment account so it looked as if it belonged to his company.

Over about five months, Malaysian Chai Song Lin siphoned off more than S$92,000 (US$71,500) from his company in this manner.

Chai, 45, was eventually caught when his superior confronted him about the discrepancy between his high sales records and the relatively low income he had generated for the company.

Chai was sentenced to 20 months and two weeks' jail on Monday (Jan 5). He pleaded guilty to one charge of cheating, covering 72 occasions between mid-September 2024 and early March 2025.

The court heard that Chai was employed as an assistant manager at 1st Allbest Human Resource from about June 2022 to March 2025.

The agency provided foreign domestic worker services, and Chai was responsible for engaging clients, selling the company's services to them and directing them to pay the deposit and processing fees for the maids the clients wished to engage.

Clients could make payment to the company's bank account via PayNow, bank transfer, cash or through a Nets payment machine in the company's office.

Sometime in September 2024, Chai came up with the idea of diverting the money meant for the company to his own bank account.

He changed his PayNow account name from "Derek" to "1st Allbest Human Resource" and told clients to make payments to this account.

He claimed that it was the company's bank account, and even generated a QR code using his own account which he gave to clients for payment.

When the clients scanned the QR code, they would see the recipient's name as "1st Allbest Human Resource" and were deceived into paying money into Chai's personal account.

More than 40 victims were cheated into transferring a total sum of S$92,508.40 to Chai's PayNow account over about five months.

The sums ranged from S$50 to S$3,500.

To keep up the appearance that he was generating income for the company, Chai paid about S$3,800 into the company's bank account.

On Mar 6 last year, Chai's superior confronted him about the discrepancy between his high sales records and the relatively low income he had generated.

Initially, Chai lied and said that his clients were not punctual with their payments.

When his superior said he would verify this with the clients, Chai admitted to taking the money. He made restitution of S$10,000 the next day after a demand by his superior, who lodged a police report.

The prosecution sought 17 to 18 months' jail for Chai, saying the offence was "carefully planned to deceive the clients and the company".

He not only abused the trust placed in him by the victims, but also his company's trust in him, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Vishnu Menon.

"If the accused person had not stood out as the highest performing salesperson, it is likely that he could have (and almost certainly would have) carried on offending," Mr Menon added.

The judge said there was a substantial amount involved in this case, with aggravating factors such as the breach of trust and premeditation by changing his PayNow display name.

He said the sentence reflects the need for general deterrence to protect the integrity of Singapore's digital payment system.

For his charge of cheating over many occasions, Chai could have been jailed for up to 20 years and fined.