'Cashback' arrangement are said to be rampant. Why none of the
housing agents n agencies bring it up before this incident? When
property agent Kereen Teo was exposed, the housing agents n
agencies act blur n pointing fingers. 
From today's Strait Times:
Convicted cashback agent says life is 'hell'
She was fined $8,000 and lost her job; also, she has to pay $55,000
settlement
By Tan Hui Yee
ON A night when most Chinese families in Singapore were gathered
round the table for their annual New Year feast, former property
agent Kereen Teo was eating by herself, too depressed to join her
folks at a restaurant.
A month ago, she became the first person in her line here to be
convicted for trying to falsely inflate the price of a Housing
Board flat, commonly called a 'cashback' arrangement.
'It's been hell,' she told The Straits Times over the phone on
Friday from her home, which she has hardly left since the news
broke in April last year.
She was fined $8,000 for her part in the scam, and lost her
job.
The 27-year-old has also had to find $55,000, determined in an
out-of-court settlement, to pay the seller of the flat for the
aborted deal.
Worse, fliers bearing copies of a Straits Times article on her case
were slipped into letterboxes in housing estates in Bishan, Bedok,
Toa Payoh, Pasir Ris and Jurong last year.
According to her former employer, they have also been available at
the reception counter of a rival real estate agency.
Ms Teo, who used to work for Propnex, the biggest property agency
in Singapore, had been in the industry for about a year when she
was caught trying to arrange a cashback deal.
Under this, the buyer and seller of a flat declare a higher price
than what it was sold for, so the buyer can get a bigger loan for
the home than is allowed, giving him some extra cash to settle
debts or renovate, while the seller, usually of an unpopular
property, gets to dispose of it fast.
Ms Teo had helped a couple, Mr Francis Hong and Madam Elizabeth
Bong, both in their 40s, arrange to buy a five-room flat in Redhill
for $390,000, but declare it for $490,000 in 2003.
One of the flat's owners, Mr Koh Kia Sang, 52, had initially agreed
to the deal, but changed his mind later and blew the whistle.
As of Tuesday last week, charges had not been brought against the
buyers or sellers.
Cashback arrangements like Ms Teo's are apparently rampant in the
resale Housing Board flat market.
According to some property agents, as many as eight of 10 calls
they receive from other agents acting for buyers are for cashback
deals.
After Ms Teo was convicted last month, eight housing agencies
contacted The Straits Times to call for tougher penalties, even
jail terms, because the illegal deal sometimes earns an agent much
more than he would from his 1 or 2 per cent commission.
Since Ms Teo's case, moves have been made to tighten the way
housing loans are given out by banks, which are expected from April
to have to base their property loans on valuations by the HDB's
panel of private valuers.
Ms Teo, who insists she would not have got a cut of the difference
in the real and declared prices had the sale gone through, said it
was her first cashback deal.
She claims she got involved to help the buyers, who she understood
were in financial difficulty.
'I'm not a hardcore criminal,' she declared. 'I was naive.'
Since her involvement came to light, she has had no income and has
to rely on her family to get by.
Her family, she said, has been very supportive.
The O-level certificate holder, who made more than $100,000 in
commissions in 2003, has also had to borrow from friends to pay her
fine and the settlement sum.
'I was just a peanut agent, a small agent, out there trying to make
a living,' said Ms Teo, adding that those who produced the fliers
of the news report are making use of her case to ruin her former
company's name.
'I want to say 'sorry' to Propnex and all its agents who have
suffered because of this.'
She confided: 'I liked what I was doing. I liked meeting people and
looking at houses and decor. And I could make a decent living for
myself. I thought it could be my career...'
Asked what she intends to do now, she said: 'I don't know. But I
need to move on.'