By Bryna Sim

FIRST came calls from people who wanted to sell him their products.

Then underaged secondary school girls started asking if he was interested in having sex.

But what caused Play Sports! School founder Joseph Tan, 28, to blow his top was getting calls from men offering sexual services.

That was when he went to the police and lodged a report that someone had stolen his identity and was misusing it.

Mr Tan said the police have since tracked down the culprit, who made a public apology in the classifieds section of The Straits Times on Wednesday.

The nuisance calls started on 26 Sep, the day of Singapore's F1 qualifying race.

"For every car that zoomed past, I received a call," he said.

The callers were strangers who said they had found his name, contact number and e-mail address on certain websites.

Photo: TNP, Mohd Ishak

Some asked if he had cameras for sale, or if he had pets for adoption.

Then came the saccharine voices of teenage girls who called him as early as5amon27 Sep.

"They asked me if I wanted to have sex with them for free," he said.

Shocked, Mr Tan said he switched off his handphone. But the moment he switched it on later that day, the calls flooded in again. This time, there were calls from men offering sexual services.

"I told the callers I'm looking for a girlfriend, and I'm not interested in their activities," he said.

Gay websites

Overwhelmed and alarmed, Mr Tan lodged a police report that day.

By then, he claimed he had received more than 150 calls and 50 SMSes.

But even after lodging the report, Mr Tan continued to be bombarded by phone calls from strangers.

He then asked some of the callers where they got his personal information from.

They gave him the Web addresses and, to his horror, he found his personal information advertised on gay websites.

Worse still, he realised that his company blog - which his students use to check for updates - had been tampered with.

Instead of the usual posts, what he found was: "Joseph Tan, free sex, for guys only. Enjoys anal and oral sex. Member of gay club. Call for free sex now!" There were also allegations that his company did not have proper business practices.

Play Sports! School, was started in July 2007. It conducts sports courses, especially water sports such as swimming.

"There were so many defamatory statements made about me that I feared it would affect my business," he said.

Parents started to withdraw their children from his swimming classes, and many of his staff and swimming coaches resigned.

"They felt that my school was disreputable, dishonest, and (they) did not want to be a part of it," he said. He claimed he lost about 80 out of 300 students, and about 20 of 30 coaches.

Mr Tan hired a lawyer late last month, around the same time that, according to him, the police called to inform him they had tracked down the culprit, a 26-year-old undergraduate.

It is understood that the man had some online disagreement with Mr Tan when they were both using avatars and tracked him down to harass him.

The man called Mr Tan, who asked him to e-mail an apology, so that he could send it to his lawyer.

"My lawyer suggested on an out-of-court settlement, so we decided on a public apology," said Mr Tan.

But why didn't he demand more? Mr Tan said the undergraduate was "still young, was remorseful and did not have much money".

"We wanted him to do a public apology in all the newspapers in Singapore, but he said he could not afford to do so," said Mr Tan.

He had "apologised profusely... and said his parents were in the dark about the whole matter".

They eventually agreed that the public apology would be made on Wednesday, in the classifieds section ofThe Straits Times.

After it appeared, Mr Tan said many parents had called him to say that they were "sorry" for having doubted the credibility of Play Sports! School.

"But they did not sign up their children with me again as they had committed to other companies already," he said.

On the bright side, Mr Tan said about 10 new students have signed up since news reports broke of his case.

"I think my reputation has already been damaged, but I trust that things will get better soon," he said.

This article was first published in The New Paper.