SINGAPORE – An Indonesian maid who used her TikTok account to promote the services of an unlicensed moneylender that she owed money to was sentenced to eight weeks’ jail on March 26.
Ida Yuliati, 43, who had pleaded guilty to one count of assisting an unlicensed moneylender, was also ordered to pay a fine of $30,000. She will have to spend an additional month behind bars if she fails to fork out the amount.
Ida posted the advertisements on 20 occasions between June 14 and Aug 25, 2023, after she failed to settle a loan of $890 which she had taken from a firm purportedly called Cashtank Financing Corporation.
A representative from it had threatened to inform Ida’s employer if she did not comply.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Suriya Prakash said the maid had come across an advertisement for loans on TikTok in February 2023.
She clicked on a WhatsApp link on the profile and made a query on how she could obtain a loan.
She later communicated with one “Sam”, who claimed to be from Cashtank, a company purportedly registered in the Philippines.
Ida then shared with Sam copies of her work permit and other details including her employer’s contact number.
On Feb 16, 2023, she took a loan of $445 from Cashtank and two months later, she settled it with an undisclosed amount paid as interest.
She took another loan of $890 from it on June 6, 2023, and later faced difficulties repaying it.
Soon after, another Cashtank employee, known only as “John”, contacted Ida and threatened to inform her employer if she did not post loan advertisements on TikTok.
Ida then created another account on the social media platform and shared its login details with John.
A picture of an unknown woman was uploaded as the profile photo of the account and a WhatsApp link was included on it.
The link led to a conversation with a WhatsApp account that purportedly belonged to an agency called “Credit 21”.
Ida later went on this TikTok account and posted multiple advertisements that John had earlier sent her via WhatsApp.
The DPP said that besides her posts, unknown persons uploaded another 20 loan advertisements onto the account, which had 1,760 followers by Aug 28, 2023.
Her 20 posts were also liked 2,437 times and shared 173 times.
The police later received more than 10 reports between June and August 2023 about her TikTok account for promoting unlicensed moneylending activities. Ida was charged in court on Feb 28.
