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Risque ads pulled from LTA signboard
Passers-by question how they slipped through vetting
By Jeremy Au Yong
AMONG the offers of rooms for rent and tuition classes on the community notice board outside Ang Mo Kio MRT station, two notices stood out.
One sought 'young, pretty, attractive, open-minded' female masseuses or escorts, while the other had an eye-opening $10 'shower package' among the highlights of services provided.
Both were advertisements by the 4ever Escort Massage Agency and were paid for and approved. But the risque nature of the ads had some people asking how they made it onto a locked, paid notice board run by a Land Transport Authority-appointed vendor in the first place.
The first of the two handwritten ads is a recruitment notice seeking female masseuses or escorts, with the promise of a monthly income of up to $10,000. The second notice outlines the services 4ever provides, including escorts to dinners, massages at home or in a hotel, and the 'shower package'.
'Our hot, sexy and pretty masseuse or handsome, charming and dashing masseurs will shower 4 u before or after a massage,' read the ad.
The notices had gone up on at least three notice boards about a week ago, in Ang Mo Kio, Yio Chu Kang and Yishun.
This was despite a clear sign on each board stating that the vendor had the 'right to reject any advertisement deemed inappropriate and/or offensive to the public'.
Yesterday, passers-by who spotted them found the adverts inappropriate, and questioned why they were not screened.
Said financial planner Tay Mong Seng, 61, who wanted to put up his own ad on the Ang Mo Kio notice board: 'I thought they check the ads before they put them up. When I wanted to submit an ad, they asked me first what it was about.'
In Yishun, assistant consultant Chew Kok Kiong, 43, was surprised at how such a lapse could have occurred.
'They're so neatly done, and it's paid for, so someone must have gone through them before they were put up. They should be more stringent and stop such advertisements from being put up.'
All the ads were removed yesterday afternoon by Wongsign & Ad, the vendor appointed by the LTA to manage the boards.
Wongsign director Michael Wong said it was the first time it has had to yank an ad since the locked boards were put up last September. He said the escort agency ads were a rare slip-up.
'The ads are screened before they are put up. There was one occasion when we rejected an ad for a personal loan,' he said.
The LTA told The Straits Times yesterday that it had reminded the vendor to 'tighten the screening process to sieve out such offensive advertisements'.
These paid community notice boards are a relatively recent addition to the neighbourhoods. They were put up last year in a bid to stop having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to clean up handbills pasted around bus and train stations.
Nine locked boards, which house notices pasted on a grid behind glass, were installed at Ang Mo Kio, Yio Chu Kang and Yishun MRT stations.
The person behind the escort ads, Mr Kurt Tay, 28, defended his notices when contacted yesterday.
'I'm saying one thing and people are thinking something else. I'm just offering escort and massage services. I used to work at a massage centre and I'm just following the words and services used in their ads,' said Mr Tay, who owns the escort agency.
While initially stressing that his service did not involve sex, he conceded that he does warn those he recruits that they may need to have sex with the clients.
Criminal lawyer Chia Boon Teck said that, strictly speaking, the notices were not breaking any laws. None solicited prostitution.
He said: 'The naughty insinuation is there but if you read it literally, then it could just mean they are literally offering only massage and escort services.'
[email protected]
Passers-by question how they slipped through vetting
By Jeremy Au Yong
AMONG the offers of rooms for rent and tuition classes on the community notice board outside Ang Mo Kio MRT station, two notices stood out.
One sought 'young, pretty, attractive, open-minded' female masseuses or escorts, while the other had an eye-opening $10 'shower package' among the highlights of services provided.
Both were advertisements by the 4ever Escort Massage Agency and were paid for and approved. But the risque nature of the ads had some people asking how they made it onto a locked, paid notice board run by a Land Transport Authority-appointed vendor in the first place.
The first of the two handwritten ads is a recruitment notice seeking female masseuses or escorts, with the promise of a monthly income of up to $10,000. The second notice outlines the services 4ever provides, including escorts to dinners, massages at home or in a hotel, and the 'shower package'.
'Our hot, sexy and pretty masseuse or handsome, charming and dashing masseurs will shower 4 u before or after a massage,' read the ad.
The notices had gone up on at least three notice boards about a week ago, in Ang Mo Kio, Yio Chu Kang and Yishun.
This was despite a clear sign on each board stating that the vendor had the 'right to reject any advertisement deemed inappropriate and/or offensive to the public'.
Yesterday, passers-by who spotted them found the adverts inappropriate, and questioned why they were not screened.
Said financial planner Tay Mong Seng, 61, who wanted to put up his own ad on the Ang Mo Kio notice board: 'I thought they check the ads before they put them up. When I wanted to submit an ad, they asked me first what it was about.'
In Yishun, assistant consultant Chew Kok Kiong, 43, was surprised at how such a lapse could have occurred.
'They're so neatly done, and it's paid for, so someone must have gone through them before they were put up. They should be more stringent and stop such advertisements from being put up.'
All the ads were removed yesterday afternoon by Wongsign & Ad, the vendor appointed by the LTA to manage the boards.
Wongsign director Michael Wong said it was the first time it has had to yank an ad since the locked boards were put up last September. He said the escort agency ads were a rare slip-up.
'The ads are screened before they are put up. There was one occasion when we rejected an ad for a personal loan,' he said.
The LTA told The Straits Times yesterday that it had reminded the vendor to 'tighten the screening process to sieve out such offensive advertisements'.
These paid community notice boards are a relatively recent addition to the neighbourhoods. They were put up last year in a bid to stop having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to clean up handbills pasted around bus and train stations.
Nine locked boards, which house notices pasted on a grid behind glass, were installed at Ang Mo Kio, Yio Chu Kang and Yishun MRT stations.
The person behind the escort ads, Mr Kurt Tay, 28, defended his notices when contacted yesterday.
'I'm saying one thing and people are thinking something else. I'm just offering escort and massage services. I used to work at a massage centre and I'm just following the words and services used in their ads,' said Mr Tay, who owns the escort agency.
While initially stressing that his service did not involve sex, he conceded that he does warn those he recruits that they may need to have sex with the clients.
Criminal lawyer Chia Boon Teck said that, strictly speaking, the notices were not breaking any laws. None solicited prostitution.
He said: 'The naughty insinuation is there but if you read it literally, then it could just mean they are literally offering only massage and escort services.'
[email protected]
It's time Sporeans teach them a hard lession 
