How a Man Avoided Paying Phone Bills and Viagra with Fake Payments

 

A 56-year-old Singaporean man has been sentenced to 11 weeks in prison for a series of cheating offences involving bounced cheques and a doctored payment screenshot to avoid paying for goods and services totaling over $26,000.

Ho Kien Mun pleaded guilty to 11 charges of cheating on Thursday, September 25, with another 19 similar charges taken into consideration by the court for sentencing. The offences revealed a pattern of deceptive behavior to obtain services without immediate payment.

The case centered on two main schemes. The first involved a large phone bill accumulated with Singtel between early 2018 and September 2019. Ho admitted to making frequent overseas calls and calls to chatlines, running up bills he could not pay. To prevent the termination of his phone service, he used a chequebook from his defunct company, SLT Peripherals & Services, whose bank account had been closed. He issued 10 cheques totaling $26,123.38 and mailed them to Singtel. He would then use the postal receipt as temporary proof of payment to have his service reinstated, knowing full well the cheques would bounce. Singtel eventually received payment through other means after the cheques failed, but not before significant administrative effort.

The second incident occurred on September 25, 2023, when Ho visited a clinic in Bishan to purchase Viagra pills worth $91. Unwilling to pay due to financial troubles, he used an image-editing program to alter a screenshot of a PayNow transfer, making it appear as though he had paid for the medication. The clinic staff, believing the screenshot was genuine, handed over the medicine.

The prosecutor highlighted Ho's clear pattern of offending, noting that he not only issued cheques from a closed account but also dispatched them via mail to buy more time before they bounced. While acknowledging that Ho had made full restitution and that Singtel did not ultimately suffer a financial loss, the prosecutor argued that this did not negate the criminality of his actions. The judge agreed, stating the sentence must be "sufficiently severe" given the prolonged period of offending and the "considerable degree of administrative inconvenience" caused to the victim companies.

Ho's lawyer requested a deferment of the jail term to allow Ho to arrange care for his sickly father and for his daughter's medical appointment. The judge granted this request. Ho was also known to have avoided petrol station payments by claiming he forgot his wallet.