Luxury bags scam on Carousell: Jail for woman who cheated 10 victims of more than S$3,000
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BY
LOW YOUJIN
Published December 6, 2022Updated December 6, 2022
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SINGAPORE — Faced with financial difficulties after being retrenched from her job, Tay Siew Chuen hatched a plan to make quick cash by deceiving 10 people into buying luxury bags from her Carousell account that she never delivered.
For this, the 32-year-old Singaporean was sentenced on Tuesday (Dec 6) to three weeks’ jail after she pleaded guilty to three charges of cheating.
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Seven other similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
In all, Tay had cheated her 10 victims a total of S$3,140. The highest amount that one victim lost was S$700 for a supposed Louis Vuitton loop bag, and the lowest was S$70 for a Coach bag.
Tay has since made restitution to all of her victims.
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State Prosecuting Officer (SPO) Lam Peng Choy told the court that Tay was working as a cleaner at the time of her offences, which took place between Jan 6 and March 19 this year.
Tay was facing financial difficulties after she lost the job she had before she became a cleaner. SPO Lam did not specify what was Tay’s occupation then or when she was retrenched.
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Tay had already been selling bags on e-commerce platform Carousell for five to six years, and she decided to use the platform to make “quick cash”, the prosecutor added.
The details for the scams were generally similar.
The victims would come across her Carousell account "@lifestylezone" and express interest in buying branded items. These included bags from brands such as Kate Spade and Gucci, and a clutch from Versace.
Thereafter, Tay would instruct the victims to transfer money to her via the PayNow e-payment system.
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Once she got the payment, Tay would use it for her own spending, with no intention of delivering the ordered product, SPO Lam said.
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Details from the three charges to which Tay pleaded guilty showed that her victims would ask her about their order after there was no delivery following payment.
In two instances, Tay refunded only a fraction of the payment — such as S$160 for the S$700 Louis Vuitton loop bag — before she stopped being in contact with the victims.
In one instance, she “simply stopped responding” to the victim, SPO Lam said.
Tay was eventually arrested on April 13 this year.
Anyone found guilty of cheating can be jailed up to three years, or fined, or both.
