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Man gets jail for cheating dental clinics of S$7,000 in treatments; told staff he needed toilet, never returned
SINGAPORE — For years, Ryosuke Tanaka went to different dental clinics to get treatments and services worth anything from hundreds of dollars to almost S$3,000.After the treatment but before making payment, he would excuse himself to go to the toilet outside the clinic, never to be seen again. He was also uncontactable.
In all, he skipped more than S$7,000 in payments.
On Wednesday (June 12), the 36-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to five months’ jail, after pleading guilty to three counts of dishonestly obtaining services.
Four similar charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
WHAT HAPPENED
According to court documents, Tanaka sought root canal treatment from a dental clinic on Jan 18 this year.While the name and full address of the clinic is redacted from court documents, the postal code shows that it is located in the Orchard Road area.
Prior to the treatment, the dentist had explained to Tanaka the cost and number of appointments required for the treatment plan.
Tanaka signed a form indicating the estimated costs.
After a roughly two-hour root canal procedure, Tanaka was asked to make payment of S$1,580.50.
He told the clinic staff that he was going to the toilet located outside the clinic, left the clinic without making payment but did not return.
“The clinic staff called four different contact numbers previously provided by the accused and sent messages via WhatsApp but did not receive a reply from him,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor Cheronne Lim.
She added that the dental clinic had provided treatment to Tanaka on four occasions in September last year and received payments for those.
The dentist made a police report about the Jan 18 incident the next day.
Tanaka repeated the same modus operandi at different clinics on Jan 23 and March 22 this year, with one of the treatments worth almost S$2,960. Each of the clinics filed police reports about the incidents.
In addition to these incidents, court documents stated that Tanaka had also obtained dental services worth over S$2,200 at three clinics on four occasions from May 2020 to October 2022. The document did not state if police reports were made over these incidents.
These incidents formed the basis of the charges taken into consideration in sentencing.
DPP Lim on Wednesday said that besides some of the services rendered to Tanaka being “semi-surgical” and the costs not insignificant, his actions has caused distress on the clinic staff who had to look for him in nearby toilets.
They also tried to contact him multiple times.
In mitigation, his defence lawyer Noelle Teoh said that the way he had cheated the clinics was not sophisticated and he did not make effort to conceal his act, as his personal and contact details were made available to the clinics.
She also highlighted the fact that he had made restitution to all the clinics.
For each count of obtaining services in a dishonest or fraudulent manner, Tanaka could have been jailed for up to 10 years, fined or both.
