SINGAPORE, May 23 — Pretending to be a genuine seller on online marketplace Carousell, Nicholas Ong Chang Hui manage to dupe 128 victims into making upfront payments for pre-orders of Apple laptops and iPhones, as well as for the sale of a Rolex watch.
After receiving a total of around S$148,000 (RM676,360) from unsuspecting victims, he would spend the money on gambling and his personal expenses. Ong had no intention to procure the items to fulfill the orders.
In court today, the 23-year-old Singaporean pleaded guilty to a charge of dishonestly cheating others and another charge of intentionally aiding an unknown person to access his account under the Computer Misuse Act.
He was sentenced to 23 months and six weeks’ jail.
How it happened
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Wong Shiau Yin told the court that between June 7, 2021, and Jan 26, 2022, Ong had posed as a genuine seller on e-commerce platform Carousell to conduct pre-orders for various electronic products, which included Apple iPhones, Apple MacBook laptops, and the Sony PlayStation 5 game consoles.
In an effort to attract potential customers, Ong would put up advertisements on Carousell and deliberately price the products lower than the market rate.
This meant that he would charge up to S$130 lower than the market rate for an iPhone 13 and a MacBook, and up to S$100 lower for a PlayStation 5 console.
He would then accept pre-orders for these items where interested customers would have to provide a full payment upfront to secure their products.
Ong had also advertised a Rolex watch for sale on his Carousell account, to which he asked for a S$5,000 deposit.
Throughout the seven months of accepting these false pre-orders, Ong had committed the offences “out of pure greed” and had neither the intention nor the ability to fulfil the orders, DPP Wong said.
As a result of his scam, Ong had received a total of S$147,946, which he used to spend on gambling and for his personal expenditure, the court heard.
Only a partial restitution of S$3,400 has been made by Ong to date.
Before this, Ong had perpetrated another Carousell scam in 2020 that involved the sale of Secret Lab chairs to 13 victims, which amounted to a total of S$4,359, court documents stated.
Investigations revealed that on Oct 17 last year, Ong was involved in another dishonest act to cheat, where he received cash for providing his United Overseas Bank (UOB) iBanking details to an unknown individual.
After getting Ong’s bank account details, the unknown person could not be contacted.
Police reports were later made against Ong’s UOB bank account, which had been used by scammers for illegal activities that resulted in victims losing a total of S$68,487.24.
In Ong’s mitigation plea, his defence counsel Rikko Isaac Chua from Tembusu Law LLC urged the court to consider a lighter sentence for his client, who has since expressed remorse for his actions, which were led by “financial desperation” exacerbated by his gambling problem.
In response, DPP Wong stressed that this is not Ong’s first offence and that there were a degree of pre-meditation in his actions, because Ong had “deliberately lowered” the prices to attract buyers.
District Judge Christopher Goh said that with all the factors presented, he agreed with the prosecution on its position and that it has asked for a fair sentence.
Anyone guilty of dishonestly cheating others by promising a delivery of goods or property could be fined and jailed up to 10 years.
Those guilty of sharing their personal bank details with another for the purpose of fraudulent transactions could be fined up to S$5,000 or jailed up to two years, or both. — TODAY
