Maid agency ordered to pay customer over false claim that helper could speak Mandarin

Maid agency ordered to pay customer over false claim that helper could speak Mandarin The magistrate said it was no defence for the maid agency to say the customer should have chosen a pricier package as getting a maid who could speak well at that price was like "looking for a needle in a haystack". SINGAPORE: A maid agency that falsely claimed its domestic helper could speak Mandarin was ordered by a Small Claims Tribunal (SCT) to pay about S$1,558 (US$1,210) to its dissatisfied customer. The customer had specifically asked for a Mandarin-speaking maid with experience in handling disabled elderly people for his bedridden mother, but later found that she could not speak or understand the language. The agency also had to pay an additional sum of about S$270 for costs and disbursements, with the magistrate chiding the agency's representative for his behaviour during the trial. The names of the claimant, her son and the maid agency were anonymised in the judgment dated Tuesday (Jun 9), as is usual for cases at the SCT, where cases are heard in private. THE CASE The claimant was an elderly lady who was bedridden due to a stroke and Parkinson's disease, requiring physical assistance for daily tasks such as meals, going to the toilet and getting up. Her son acted as her representative throughout the proceedings and also looked for a maid on her behalf. He approached the agency around November 2024 to look for a maid, seeking one who had experience in caring for disabled elderly people and was proficient in Mandarin, since his mother understood minimal English and spoke mainly Mandarin. The maid agency provided the biodata of a domestic helper from Myanmar. Under the "skills" section, the agency indicated "Mandarin" for the maid's spoken language ability, without any qualification. In late November 2024, the maid agency forwarded a video lasting almost two minutes to the woman's son, showing the maid speaking in Mandarin to describe herself, her family and her work experience. The son also had a video call with the maid to interview her, asking her job-related questions in Mandarin. The woman responded with nods of her head and indicating yes in Mandarin. This solidified his belief derived from the biodata and the video that the maid could speak Mandarin. He chose this maid to care for his mother. After the paperwork was handled, the maid began work for the elderly woman in December 2024, where it "quickly became apparent" that she could hardly speak or understood Mandarin and English. The son immediately reported this issue to the agency via WhatsApp, but was asked to "give her some time" and to use Google translation first. The son thus worked with the maid for a week, teaching her about his mother's caregiving needs, using Google translate to get by. However, his mother could not use a phone to communicate when he was not around. A week after the maid started work, the son asked for a replacement, reiterating that the new helper must be able to speak Mandarin and have experience in caring for disabled elderly people. None of the other maids suggested by the agency met these requirements, and the son returned the helper to the agency in mid-January 2025. Given what happened, the son asked for a full refund and reimbursement for the expenses he incurred in hiring the maid. However, the agency refunded only about S$3,340 in February 2025. This consisted of the pro-rated balance of the maid's placement loan that the son had paid on her behalf, and a sum of S$402 that was half the agency's service fee. The son was dissatisfied with this amount. Together with his brother, he sued the agency in the SCT for an additional S$2,591 in February 2025. The tribunal magistrate dismissed their claim in May 2025 because they did not have the standing to sue, since neither of them were privy to the service agreement. The son sued again for unfair practice under the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act in June 2025, obtaining the tribunal's permission to act as his mother's representative and reducing the claim amount slightly. A representative from the maid agency denied committing any unfair practice, saying the agency had been hired to find a maid who could speak "simple" Mandarin. He claimed the agency had delivered its end of the bargain, because the maid could do just that. The representative also argued that the claimant should have opted for a more expensive search package if she wanted a maid who was proficient in Mandarin. This would have meant a higher agency fee and monthly salary of S$900 and upwards for maids with experience working in places such as Taiwan or Hong Kong. Since the chosen maid's salary was on the lower end of the spectrum at S$500 a month, finding a maid within this price range with good Mandarin skills was like "looking for a needle in a haystack", the representative said. MAGISTRATE'S FINDINGS Tribunal Magistrate Leon Abraham Tan found that the maid agency had committed an unfair practice. The agency did not provide any evidence to show or suggest that the scope of its engagement was confined to sourcing for a maid who could speak simple Mandarin. Instead, this was just a "bald assertion" by the agency's representative. Also, the conduct by both parties after the contract was formed corroborated the account of the claimant's son. For example, a text he sent in December 2024 indicated that he had said "all along" that he wanted a maid who could speak and communicate in Mandarin, and not "little or simple Mandarin". The next day, a worker from the agency replied that she had found another maid who could "speak good Mandarin". Mr Tan said it was "absolutely no defence" for the agency to say that the claimant should have chosen a more expensive search package, or that looking for a maid who could speak Mandarin proficiently in that payscale was like "looking for a needle in a haystack". "Such arguments did not take the respondent anywhere because no one forced it to take on the claimant as a client," said Mr Tan. "If the respondent truly felt that the task was far too onerous, it could have declined (his) business, and he could have moved on to engage the services of a different agency on the claimant's behalf." Mr Tan said the agency failed to provide a maid who could speak even simple Mandarin. "In my judgment, it was far too generous to say that (the maid) could communicate in simple Mandarin," he said, finding her proficiency either "non-existent" or "extremely poor" at best. He said the conduct of the agency was not reasonable in the circumstances and said the onus was on such agencies to accurately characterise and represent the skills of the maids they proffered. This was so that customers were not misled, whether intentionally or accidentally, into spending money to bring the maids in only to find that their skills did not "match up". He did not allow some of the items claimed for that he said were not incurred due to the maid agency's unfair practice. For example, a fee for the agency to settle the work permit application and issuance fees, since these had to be paid even if a Mandarin-speaking maid had been provided. THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE MAID AGENCY'S REPRESENTATIVE Mr Tan also made several observations on the behaviour by the representative from the maid agency. On one occasion, the representative attended the trial via video-conference from a Starbucks cafe in Changi Airport with a maid nearby, claiming he had to send off that maid urgently. Mr Tan told the representative that he could not attend the trial there because it was a public space open to observation by others or eavesdropping. The representative had failed to comply with the guidelines for video-conferencing and tried to reschedule the trial but the magistrate declined to do so. When asked to relocate to a better place with better privacy, the representative "got a little frustrated", said Mr Tan. He told the representative that there was a "prioritisation issue here" because the latter had "clearly failed to appreciate the need to prioritise the trial". At one point, the representative asked if he could do it in his car. When told by the magistrate that the same concern applied, he responded: "So what? What? What? What do you want me to do?" When the magistrate pointed out that attending the trial by video conference was a privilege, the representative "became defensive and retorted" that he did not ask to attend by video-conference. At one point he also told the magistrate that the latter was "making things difficult for me". The representative later told the magistrate: "I will definitely file a complaint against you." To this, Mr Tan said: "You are free to file a complaint. If you're threatening the judge, that does not seem to bode well for you." The representative also repeatedly asked if the magistrate had a "superior" above him that he could contact "just for feedback". He tried to get the magistrate recused from the case but failed. Mr Tan issued costs for the agency, finding that its representative's conduct and his filing of a recusal application was "sufficiently egregious" to warrant adverse costs. In concluding, he stressed that attending trial by video-conference is a convenience extended to litigants and not an entitlement that can be insisted upon. He also said that a tribunal can exercise its power to order costs against litigants who pursue "unmeritorious applications that needlessly prolong a case" and said litigants are "not free to judge-shop". Mr Tan said that "allegations of judicial bias are extremely serious" and that applications seeking recusal must never be made lightly. "Indeed, such allegations and applications may be deployed abusively and needlessly consume valuable court time and resources. The tribunal will therefore not countenance the casual making of such allegations and applications, and serious consequences may ensue if they are found to be unmeritorious," he said.