SINGAPORE - A senior PropNex property agent duped one of her clients into paying more than $26,000 in purported stamp duty fee to settle a similar fee for another client.
The victim, Madam Ainur Rashidah Othman, who was asked to provide the sum in a cashier's order, later learnt from the Housing Board that the stamp duty for her flat was only about $16,000, and had been paid in full through her husband's Central Provident Fund (CPF).
On Tuesday, the former agent - Kamsaton Rohani - was sentenced to 11 months' jail after pleading guilty to a cheating charge.
The 54-year-old, who was an associate division director at PropNex, is no longer on the Council for Estate Agencies' public register.
In dealing with another client who wanted to buy a condominium unit, Kamsaton had mistakenly told him he could use CPF monies to pay for the stamp duty fee.
But for reasons not stated in court documents, he had to pay the fee in cash, a sum he did not have.
Kamsaton decided to settle the fee for reasons not mentioned, and hatched a plan to lie to Madam Ainur, 54, to get her to pay more than she needed to.
On March 27, 2018, she told the victim and her husband via Whatsapp that they had to pay more than $26,000 for the stamp duty fee of their HDB flat.
She told them to do so via a cashier's order, with payment to be made to the "Commissioner of Stamp Duties".
Kamsaton claimed that the CPF Board would reimburse the couple with a cashier's order. Although Madam Ainur had some doubts, she prepared a cashier's order and handed it to Kamsaton the next day.
Madam Ainur did not receive the promised "refund" by Aug 27, 2018, and sent an e-mail to HDB.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Amanda Han said an HDB employee replied that her purchase did not require payment of stamp fees in cash.
Madam Ainur eventually made a police report on July 11 last year.
It emerged that Kamsaton had cheated Madam Ainur so that she could use the sum to pay for the other client's stamp duty fees.
It was not stated in court papers how she got the money even though the cashier's order was not in her name.
DPP Han said that to date, Kamsaton has made a partial restitution of $6,200.
For cheating, she could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
