Watch for registry scam

A business owner thought he was dealing with a government agency, until he was asked to pay $490 to maintain his company information on the database. Only then did he realise it was a ruse.

The man, who wanted to be known only as Mr Tan, received a letter from the "Singapore Company Register" on Nov 12.

The 43-year-old was one of two people The New Paper spoke to who had been sent the letter.

In it, they were told that some information about their companies had not been verified in the Singapore Company Register's database.

They were instructed to use a given username and password to verify their particulars.

The letter said that if they did not do so within one week, their companies' information "will be deleted" from the database.

In Mr Tan's case, he logged on to its website on Nov 13, only to find out later that it wanted to bill him $490 for subscription upon verification.

Mr Tan, who runs a company dealing with home appliances and computers, sent a message that day to the Singapore Company Register entity, asking it to remove his company name from the database.

It complied the next day.

He said: "The company sent a very misleading letter. I gave my particulars to it, only to find out later that it was actually a sales tactic.

"The letter made no mention of this at all."

Ignored the letter

The other man affected, an employment agency owner who wanted to be known only as Mr Ronnie, 57, said he ignored the letter.

"But I felt suspicious when I noticed that the letter lacked information like a phone number and an e-mail address."

The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) issued a media advisory on Monday saying that it has "no links whatsoever" to the company and is investigating the matter.

When TNP visited the company's website, only an address "80, Robinson Road, near Raffles Place" was listed as contact information. There was no phone number listed.

And instead of an e-mail address, there was an online form for messages to be sent.

The website described itself as "a public Singaporean company database".

It added: "Every company has a categorised public page, which contains their information such as address, contact info, etc.

"It can be used as a business search engine, and it has useful built-in services for verified companies."

An Acra search revealed that the company was registered on Oct 9 and that it has two directors, a Singaporean and a Hungarian.

It has one shareholder, a Slovakian company.

Efforts to reach the Singaporean at his Jurong West flat last night were unsuccessful.

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