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eBay tycoon fends off fraud claims
Published on 18 July 2010, Straits Times
Reporter: Goh Chin Lian
Fake Millionaires
He claimed to have made millions buying and selling stuff online and even co-authored a book entitled Secrets Of eBay Millionaires.
Mr Benjamin Marc Wee, 38, has taken his expertise into the real world, conducting workshops, offering to coach people one-to-one, leading product sourcing trips to China and even appearing on a talk show on television.
But the eBay ‘millionaire’ is coming undone, with accusations levelled against him by at least five people and at least four police reports lodged.
He also has a court order to return $26,382.23 to one of his accusers.
Their claims centre on non-payment and unfulfilled promises. They said they paid him thousands of dollars for products, investment and personal coaching, but he failed to deliver and did not return their money.
One has even gone so far as to set up a website, posting a police report, a cheque voucher, court documents and Facebook messages from alleged ‘victims’.
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Mr Wee dismissed the accusations as a smear campaign against him and said he saw ‘no point’ responding to allegations on the website.
‘I can tell people, ‘Hey, I’m a very good person’, so what?’
In the interview last Friday, he told of how he regretted going off his tried and tested path of trading on the Internet.
‘I was, before that, quietly making money. Nobody bothered me. I didn’t teach anybody how to do anything. I guess that was a pretty good life,’ he said.
He wants nothing to do with WTF, a company he started with an investor in July 2008 and which used to organise workshops and China sourcing trips.
It is now only a ’shell company’ with no staff, said Mr Wee, who is its sole director and shareholder.
As for the damning website, he claimed he knew about it, but had not seen it.
The last time he defended himself on an online forum, he said, it led to more criticisms and left him with a bitter aftertaste.
‘A lot of people will write a lot of not so good things. Other people will just jump in even if they don’t know me. That sort of thing affects me. It’s not a good feeling.’
Mr Wee said he was studying English and journalism in San Francisco around 1995, after completing his national service, when he started going into business for himself by making online forays.
But his big break came with selling PlayStation 3 consoles online in 2006.
It was a simple business plan: Source for cheap products overseas and re-sell them on eBay for a profit. He has sold everything from electronic goods to clothing.
But in the eyes of his accusers, he has fallen short.
Mr Neo Tiong Wee, 43, who owns a few companies, including trading and IT businesses, sank $25,000 into a joint venture with Mr Wee on April 1 last year.
Mr Neo told The Sunday Times that he was supposed to get back his $25,000 working capital in three months, or by July 1 last year, and receive 50 per cent or $12,500 a month from the fourth month on.
Except that a month later, he was asked for another $15,000, which he turned down.
Said Mr Neo: ‘I declined the offer since I had not yet received the promised payout from the initial investment.’
On Sept 6 last year, he said Mr Wee asked him for a $3,000 loan and, in return, promised to pay all that was owed to him at one go.
‘When I asked him why he as a multimillionaire did not even have $3,000, he told me that all his money was ‘parked’ offshore… and he had ‘miscalculated’ his incidental expenses,’ he said.
He parted with the money.
But when he did not receive any payment from Mr Wee apart from $2,900 in October, he tried to reach Mr Wee on the phone. After several tries, he got Mr Wee on the line. Mr Wee would promise to pay up. But did not.
He wondered if the $25,000 was actually used for the business.
Mr Neo has taken out a court order against Mr Wee to pay up.
Asked about these claims, Mr Wee’s first remark was: ‘Very interesting.’
He claimed the money was spent – on buying SD memory cards, opening a bank account in China and hiring people there, among other things.
He also claimed someone later drained the bank account dry and took the remaining stock of SD cards.
‘I’m trying to settle with him, but honestly, I have been travelling so much and every time he sends me a lawyer’s letter, I’m not around. I will try to settle when I come back. I wish these people will just talk to me.’
Mr Wee is a hard man to reach, going by what his former clients told The Sunday Times.
They claim this was especially so after they had paid him or questioned him on unfulfilled promises. Again, he shrugged off their claims, saying he changed his phone number ‘four, five times’ last year.
‘I change phone numbers very, very often not because I want to hide from anybody. But usually I keep on losing my SIM cards. You must understand I travel a lot… and I don’t really do roaming.
‘I’m a bit of a klutz. I go to China. I buy a SIM card. You know it comes in an envelope, right? So I will take my own sweet time, put in the envelope and then I will take my new SIM card and put there. Sometimes I leave and I forget the thing. I mean, it looks like just a piece of paper.’
He hastened to add that they could have reached him by e-mail or on his Facebook page, where he always updates his latest phone number.
He also told this reporter later: ‘You can contact me. Was I that hard to find?’
But is business bad now? Does he have cash-flow problems?
‘I’m actually invested in something else right now, so the answer is yah, lah.’
He claimed the investment had to do with a device that could use multiple SIM cards.
But does he have the money to pay his supposed debts? He said: ‘Actually, I can work something out.’
He attributes most of the tangles he is in to his inefficiency.
‘I’m just not the most organised person… I sometimes make three appointments at the same time.
‘I’m also not the best person with money, meaning that I’ve got money, here, here, take, take,’ he said, motioning the act of giving out money.
His accusers, however, would have been happy with that.
Other allegations by clients, partners
Their claims centre on non-payment and unfulfilled promises. They said they paid Benjamin Marc Wee thousands of dollars for products,investment and personal coaching, but he failed to deliver and did not return their money.
Mr Nicholas Foo Ming Chern, 30
He claimed that in August 2008, Mr Wee got him as a partner to run Internet marketing projects.
But over several months, Mr Wee kept issuing cheques which bounced.
He claimed Mr Wee owed him and two others about $80,000 in retainer fees and company expenses that they paid out of pocket, by the time they parted ways in August last year.
Last month, Mr Foo, who runs product sourcing trips to China, set up the website levelling accusations against Mr Wee.
# Mr Wee: He claimed he pumped in money from his seminars into the company when the business was not doing well, while the others did little to drum up business beyond organising the product sourcing trips to China.
He felt the amount they demanded was too much when he wound down the company. ‘They added all these things which, honestly, I didn’t feel they had any right asking.’
He also claimed he had given instructions not to bank in the cheques yet at the time.
Mr Wandy, 26
This account manager from Medan, Indonesia, gave Mr Wee $8,500 to buy 10 iPhones in May last year, but has yet to see them.
Mr Wandy, who came here four years ago and is a Singapore permanent resident, chased Mr Wee for the phones, but each time he gave reasons like the phones were stuck at customs, or had battery or SIM card problems.
He asked for his money back, but Mr Wee stopped replying to his SMSes and answering his calls.
Mr Wee: He claimed he made the purchase for the iPhones but the Singaporean seller disappeared. He said he knew the seller only as Ryan.
Asked if he will pay Mr Wandy back, he said: ‘I’m just the middleman.’
‘If he wants to contact me, I’ll see what I can do,’ he said adding that he did not have Mr Wandy’s phone number as he often loses the SIM card for his cellphone.
Mr Kelvin Loh Kia Meng, 30
The forex trader paid Mr Wee $9,997 in 2008 for one-to-one coaching.
He claimed Mr Wee assured him that after several months of coaching, he would be able to make a five figure income every month.
He had no more than six sessions with him over six months with little results – about $1,000 in sales, he said.
It was difficult to contact Mr Wee for more coaching sessions, and they met only another two times, he claimed.
Mr Wee: He claimed his personal coaching is for a lifetime, but he would spend more time with a person in the beginning and less time later on. Also he says he must get along with the client.
‘I wasn’t aware he was unhappy about it,’ he claimed.
Still a millionaire?
The string of accusations against Mr Benjamin Marc Wee has caused parties like Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group to distance themselves from him.
It has stopped distributing Mr Wee’s eBay millionaires book published in 2007, which its executive director, Mr Stuart Tan, had edited.
The education company had in 2008 stopped marketing his two-day programmes when demand for them fell, Mr Tan, 36, said. ‘It has been over a year since we last met, so we can’t verify if Ben is still considered an eBay expert,’ he said.
Asked about his personal life, Mr Wee said he is currently putting up in a HDB flat in Serangoon that is ‘not under my name’.
He said that he has rented out his three-room HDB flat in Commonwealth Crescent.
He spends a lot of time in Hong Kong and China, he said, adding that he would rent a place there as the rates for a ‘nice condominium’ are as cheap as 1,800 yuan (S$365) a month. He plans to fly to Shenzhen soon to source for electronic products.
He does not own a car and gets around in taxis as it works out to be cheaper, he said.
Asked if he could still safely describe himself as a millionaire, he said: ‘I have got money. You put everything together, including the property I have, it’s more than $1 million.
Why are some Sinkies so stupid???????
Always scammed by "millionaire coaches"
Published on 18 July 2010, Straits Times
Reporter: Goh Chin Lian
Fake Millionaires
He claimed to have made millions buying and selling stuff online and even co-authored a book entitled Secrets Of eBay Millionaires.
Mr Benjamin Marc Wee, 38, has taken his expertise into the real world, conducting workshops, offering to coach people one-to-one, leading product sourcing trips to China and even appearing on a talk show on television.
But the eBay ‘millionaire’ is coming undone, with accusations levelled against him by at least five people and at least four police reports lodged.
He also has a court order to return $26,382.23 to one of his accusers.
Their claims centre on non-payment and unfulfilled promises. They said they paid him thousands of dollars for products, investment and personal coaching, but he failed to deliver and did not return their money.
One has even gone so far as to set up a website, posting a police report, a cheque voucher, court documents and Facebook messages from alleged ‘victims’.
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Mr Wee dismissed the accusations as a smear campaign against him and said he saw ‘no point’ responding to allegations on the website.
‘I can tell people, ‘Hey, I’m a very good person’, so what?’
In the interview last Friday, he told of how he regretted going off his tried and tested path of trading on the Internet.
‘I was, before that, quietly making money. Nobody bothered me. I didn’t teach anybody how to do anything. I guess that was a pretty good life,’ he said.
He wants nothing to do with WTF, a company he started with an investor in July 2008 and which used to organise workshops and China sourcing trips.
It is now only a ’shell company’ with no staff, said Mr Wee, who is its sole director and shareholder.
As for the damning website, he claimed he knew about it, but had not seen it.
The last time he defended himself on an online forum, he said, it led to more criticisms and left him with a bitter aftertaste.
‘A lot of people will write a lot of not so good things. Other people will just jump in even if they don’t know me. That sort of thing affects me. It’s not a good feeling.’
Mr Wee said he was studying English and journalism in San Francisco around 1995, after completing his national service, when he started going into business for himself by making online forays.
But his big break came with selling PlayStation 3 consoles online in 2006.
It was a simple business plan: Source for cheap products overseas and re-sell them on eBay for a profit. He has sold everything from electronic goods to clothing.
But in the eyes of his accusers, he has fallen short.
Mr Neo Tiong Wee, 43, who owns a few companies, including trading and IT businesses, sank $25,000 into a joint venture with Mr Wee on April 1 last year.
Mr Neo told The Sunday Times that he was supposed to get back his $25,000 working capital in three months, or by July 1 last year, and receive 50 per cent or $12,500 a month from the fourth month on.
Except that a month later, he was asked for another $15,000, which he turned down.
Said Mr Neo: ‘I declined the offer since I had not yet received the promised payout from the initial investment.’
On Sept 6 last year, he said Mr Wee asked him for a $3,000 loan and, in return, promised to pay all that was owed to him at one go.
‘When I asked him why he as a multimillionaire did not even have $3,000, he told me that all his money was ‘parked’ offshore… and he had ‘miscalculated’ his incidental expenses,’ he said.
He parted with the money.
But when he did not receive any payment from Mr Wee apart from $2,900 in October, he tried to reach Mr Wee on the phone. After several tries, he got Mr Wee on the line. Mr Wee would promise to pay up. But did not.
He wondered if the $25,000 was actually used for the business.
Mr Neo has taken out a court order against Mr Wee to pay up.
Asked about these claims, Mr Wee’s first remark was: ‘Very interesting.’
He claimed the money was spent – on buying SD memory cards, opening a bank account in China and hiring people there, among other things.
He also claimed someone later drained the bank account dry and took the remaining stock of SD cards.
‘I’m trying to settle with him, but honestly, I have been travelling so much and every time he sends me a lawyer’s letter, I’m not around. I will try to settle when I come back. I wish these people will just talk to me.’
Mr Wee is a hard man to reach, going by what his former clients told The Sunday Times.
They claim this was especially so after they had paid him or questioned him on unfulfilled promises. Again, he shrugged off their claims, saying he changed his phone number ‘four, five times’ last year.
‘I change phone numbers very, very often not because I want to hide from anybody. But usually I keep on losing my SIM cards. You must understand I travel a lot… and I don’t really do roaming.
‘I’m a bit of a klutz. I go to China. I buy a SIM card. You know it comes in an envelope, right? So I will take my own sweet time, put in the envelope and then I will take my new SIM card and put there. Sometimes I leave and I forget the thing. I mean, it looks like just a piece of paper.’
He hastened to add that they could have reached him by e-mail or on his Facebook page, where he always updates his latest phone number.
He also told this reporter later: ‘You can contact me. Was I that hard to find?’
But is business bad now? Does he have cash-flow problems?
‘I’m actually invested in something else right now, so the answer is yah, lah.’
He claimed the investment had to do with a device that could use multiple SIM cards.
But does he have the money to pay his supposed debts? He said: ‘Actually, I can work something out.’
He attributes most of the tangles he is in to his inefficiency.
‘I’m just not the most organised person… I sometimes make three appointments at the same time.
‘I’m also not the best person with money, meaning that I’ve got money, here, here, take, take,’ he said, motioning the act of giving out money.
His accusers, however, would have been happy with that.
Other allegations by clients, partners
Their claims centre on non-payment and unfulfilled promises. They said they paid Benjamin Marc Wee thousands of dollars for products,investment and personal coaching, but he failed to deliver and did not return their money.
Mr Nicholas Foo Ming Chern, 30
He claimed that in August 2008, Mr Wee got him as a partner to run Internet marketing projects.
But over several months, Mr Wee kept issuing cheques which bounced.
He claimed Mr Wee owed him and two others about $80,000 in retainer fees and company expenses that they paid out of pocket, by the time they parted ways in August last year.
Last month, Mr Foo, who runs product sourcing trips to China, set up the website levelling accusations against Mr Wee.
# Mr Wee: He claimed he pumped in money from his seminars into the company when the business was not doing well, while the others did little to drum up business beyond organising the product sourcing trips to China.
He felt the amount they demanded was too much when he wound down the company. ‘They added all these things which, honestly, I didn’t feel they had any right asking.’
He also claimed he had given instructions not to bank in the cheques yet at the time.
Mr Wandy, 26
This account manager from Medan, Indonesia, gave Mr Wee $8,500 to buy 10 iPhones in May last year, but has yet to see them.
Mr Wandy, who came here four years ago and is a Singapore permanent resident, chased Mr Wee for the phones, but each time he gave reasons like the phones were stuck at customs, or had battery or SIM card problems.
He asked for his money back, but Mr Wee stopped replying to his SMSes and answering his calls.
Mr Wee: He claimed he made the purchase for the iPhones but the Singaporean seller disappeared. He said he knew the seller only as Ryan.
Asked if he will pay Mr Wandy back, he said: ‘I’m just the middleman.’
‘If he wants to contact me, I’ll see what I can do,’ he said adding that he did not have Mr Wandy’s phone number as he often loses the SIM card for his cellphone.
Mr Kelvin Loh Kia Meng, 30
The forex trader paid Mr Wee $9,997 in 2008 for one-to-one coaching.
He claimed Mr Wee assured him that after several months of coaching, he would be able to make a five figure income every month.
He had no more than six sessions with him over six months with little results – about $1,000 in sales, he said.
It was difficult to contact Mr Wee for more coaching sessions, and they met only another two times, he claimed.
Mr Wee: He claimed his personal coaching is for a lifetime, but he would spend more time with a person in the beginning and less time later on. Also he says he must get along with the client.
‘I wasn’t aware he was unhappy about it,’ he claimed.
Still a millionaire?
The string of accusations against Mr Benjamin Marc Wee has caused parties like Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group to distance themselves from him.
It has stopped distributing Mr Wee’s eBay millionaires book published in 2007, which its executive director, Mr Stuart Tan, had edited.
The education company had in 2008 stopped marketing his two-day programmes when demand for them fell, Mr Tan, 36, said. ‘It has been over a year since we last met, so we can’t verify if Ben is still considered an eBay expert,’ he said.
Asked about his personal life, Mr Wee said he is currently putting up in a HDB flat in Serangoon that is ‘not under my name’.
He said that he has rented out his three-room HDB flat in Commonwealth Crescent.
He spends a lot of time in Hong Kong and China, he said, adding that he would rent a place there as the rates for a ‘nice condominium’ are as cheap as 1,800 yuan (S$365) a month. He plans to fly to Shenzhen soon to source for electronic products.
He does not own a car and gets around in taxis as it works out to be cheaper, he said.
Asked if he could still safely describe himself as a millionaire, he said: ‘I have got money. You put everything together, including the property I have, it’s more than $1 million.
Why are some Sinkies so stupid???????
Always scammed by "millionaire coaches"
