A new day, a new scam? Well, not quite.

The Housing and Development Board has come out to clarify that an official-looking letter bearing its logo for an appointed consultant to carry out inspections inside the premises of flats is actually authentic:

This was after HardwareZone forum had a thread calling attention to the letter that was riddled with at least one glaring typo and inconsistent with British English usage in Singapore, which made things look too suspicious to be real.

For example, the letter misspelt "premises" as "promises":

He will need to enter your promises to carry out the inspection...

Moreover, the word "authorized" relied on the American spelling instead of the British spelling of "authorised".

Warnings to beware of the letter and the letter-bearer made its rounds on social media and private messages:

We don't want to hurt anybody, but how did this letter get crafted and sent in the first place?

For instance, is there any reason for the little to no coordination between the inspection team and the hotline team? The hotline staff actually gave the wrong information to the discerning member of the public.

And shouldn't the corporate communications or public affairs team be checking the wording letter before it was sent out it bears the proud logo of HDB?

Given the prominence and well-publicised scams occurring in Singapore in recent years, the public has been on high alert and have tried to be less credulous.

We have contacted HDB and will update this post with their reply.

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