Man jailed 15 months for cheating 11 in mobile phone scam
By Alvina Soh | Posted: 07 June 2012 1343 hrs
SINGAPORE: A con man was jailed 15 months on Thursday for duping his victims into signing up for mobile phone contracts, and then selling their new handsets for his personal gain.
25-year-old Syed Abdul Nazahar Syed Abdul Muhamad pleaded guilty to four counts of cheating.
Eight other similar charges were taken into consideration.
His 11 victims included a pastor, a student and an usher.
Between May 2011 and January 2012, he made away with 25 iPhones, 3 HTC smartphones and an iPad, worth S$28,804.
The ruse saw Syed Abdul meeting his victims online and deceiving them into believing that they had been chosen to take part in a customer service survey for a bogus company called "Singapore Survey System."
Syed Abdul told his victims that they had to sign up for new contracts at mobile retail outlets, and observe the service provided by customer service staff.
He got his victims to subscribe to multiple mobile phones lines with SingTel, M1 and StarHub.
Syed Abdul then told his victims to hand over the new mobile devices, so that he can terminate the contracts with the telcos.
However, he sold the phones immediately after receiving them.
Another tactic Syed Abdul used was to claim that he was a staff from ECS Credit, a company that provides loans.
He convinced his victims to sign up for new mobile phones, which he said would be used to offset their loans.
Once his victims handed over the new phones, he sold them.
No restitution has been made to his victims.
For cheating, he could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined for each charge.
- CNA/ck
