The Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA) said on July 15 that it has been alerted to a training organisation which is offering vouchers in exchange for individuals signing up for their courses and claiming their SkillsFuture Credit via SingPass.
Writing on its Facebook page, it wrote, “WDA takes a serious view of any individual or organisation that abuses the SkillsFuture Credit scheme and will not hesitate to act against those who contravene our guidelines and terms on the use of SkillsFuture Credit,”
The scam promises vouchers worth S$500 from NTUC FairPrice if the user were to help answer questions via a survey.
The NTUC FairPrice had earlier warned about the scam, just three days before the WDA advisory.
“Please note that this is not created or endorsed by FairPrice and we advise our customers to be wary of such campaigns. We’ve also separately made a police report,” FairPrice said on its Facebook page about the scam.
WDA urged all users to avoid sharing their SingPass account information with others and to inform the agency if they are contacted by individuals or organisations offering such suspicious offers. Members of public can provide feedback of any suspicious acts via https://portal.wda.gov.sg/feedback.
The SkillsFuture initiative grants every Singaporeans aged 25 and above, a $500 credit to pay for skill courses. The initiative was kicked off in January with the aim of promoting lifelong learning. It is said that there are 12,000 courses from the SkillsFuture scheme that Singaporeans can choose from.
In April, Acting Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung said that more 18,000 people had tapped their credit in the first three months of the year.