\n<\/p>\n
CASE proposed three measures: mandatory cooling-off periods for high-value prepaid packages, mandatory CaseTrust accreditation in sectors involving substantial or long-term prepayments and appropriate investigation and enforcement in potential cases of wrongful trading.<\/p>\n
Mandatory cooling-off periods would give consumers time to consider commitments involving substantial upfront payments and cancel without penalty, CASE said.<\/p>\n
The association also proposed making CaseTrust accreditation compulsory for businesses in sectors involving substantial or long-term consumer prepayments, including the beauty and fitness industries.<\/p>\n
Such accreditation would require safeguards including prepayment protection, transparent pricing, clear contractual terms, proper disclosure and reasonable refund arrangements, CASE said.<\/p>\n
It also called for potential cases of wrongful trading to be appropriately investigated, with enforcement action taken under section 239(6) of the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018, where the relevant legal requirements are met.<\/p>\n
CASE said this may include circumstances in which the collection of substantial prepayments shortly before liquidation warrants closer examination.<\/p>\n
\u201cEffective investigation and enforcement, where supported by the evidence, would strengthen accountability and provide a meaningful deterrent,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The association said its three proposals were complementary and intended to strengthen Singapore\u2019s overall consumer protection framework.<\/p>\n
It stressed that the proposals \u201cdo not constitute an allegation of wrongdoing against any particular business or individual\u201d.<\/p>\n
CASE President Melvin Yong called for the proposed safeguards to be introduced \u201cpromptly\u201d to protect consumers, establish clear and responsible standards for businesses and give consumers greater confidence when purchasing prepaid packages.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsumers should not continue to bear substantial losses when prepaid services cannot be fulfilled because a business ceases operations,\u201d said Mr Yong.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recent fitness closures and sharp rise in reported prepayment losses highlight the limitations of relying solely on voluntary measures. The time has come to introduce mandatory safeguards in sectors involving substantial or long-term consumer prepayments.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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PROPOSED SAFEGUARDS CASE proposed three measures: mandatory cooling-off periods for high-value prepaid packages, mandatory CaseTrust accreditation in sectors involving substantial or long-term prepayments and appropriate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--bDcvIyIP--\/c_crop,h_511,w_909,x_1,y_96\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/10\/05\/fitness-businesses.png?itok=T_nFJGGm","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[349,596,10040,2319,5275,4826,6880,787,31116,15187],"class_list":["post-90394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-calls","tag-case","tag-closures","tag-fitness","tag-linked","tag-losses","tag-mandatory","tag-million","tag-s3-82","tag-safeguards","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/90395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}