H
Han Solo
Guest
Jan 10, 2011
Jailed for submitting fake payslips to bank
By Khushwant Singh
A BANK officer suspected that a payslip submitted by a credit card applicant was not the real McCoy and checked with the employer.
True enough, the salary had been inflated to meet the $60,000 annual income requirement set by Standard Chartered Bank (SCB).
Investigations revealed that a whole team at telemarketing firm Touch & Tech was behind it, and on Monday, a direct sales agent and an applicant pleaded guilty to conspiring to using the false payslips and fake employment letters.
Both are Filipinos. Charon Legaspi Dimpas, 26, was jailed three years and nine months while Maria Theresa Arena Garcia, 39, was jailed six months.
A district court heard that Dimpas had submitted fake documents for 96 applicants and earned $8,474 in commission from June to November 2009.
SCB had engaged Touch & Tech to market its credit cards. From its office in Middle Road, Dimpas would make cold calls to prospective applicants but many did not meet the bank's criteria.
Besides the inflated payslips, Dimpas also submitted false letters for extension of employment because applicants needed a minimum of one-year validity remaining on the employment passes.
In Garcia's case, she was an administrative operations executive with an employment agency in 2009, earning $2,600 a month. On the fake payslip, this was inflated to $5,180.
Like the others, she also used the fake documents to apply for a loan and the court heard that SCB had lent nearly $760,000 to the 96 applicants.
