Woman didn't pay for luxury items on 161 occasions, cheating nearly $220k

SINGAPORE - A woman cheated the director of online retailer PremiumMall of nearly $220,000 in total after duping the seller of luxury goods into believing that she had paid for some items, even though no cash was transferred to the firm.

Hetty Rafeta Roselan, 35, was sentenced on Friday (Oct 2) to two years and four months' jail after pleading guilty to a cheating charge involving nearly $130,000.

Three other similar charges linked to the remaining sum were considered during sentencing.

PremiumMall is an online retailer that sells luxury items, such as bags and shoes, on online channels including Facebook, Carousell and Lazada.

Sometime in early 2015, Hetty found an advertisement on PremiumMall's Facebook page and decided to buy a handbag from the retailer.

The jobless Singaporean communicated with PremiumMall's director, Ms Lee Bee Yee, 48, via messaging app Telegram to arrange for payment to be made in advance via a bank transfer.

Hetty transferred the payment to the firm's bank account and sent a screenshot of the transaction to Ms Lee.

After verifying that she had received the money in the bank account, Ms Lee delivered the handbag to Hetty. Court documents did not reveal the amount involved in this transaction.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Colin Ng said: "After several successful transactions with the accused, the victim found the accused to be reliable.

"She would deliver the items to the accused upon receipt of the screenshots of the payment details, without verifying that the bank transfers were indeed successful - that the payments were received in the (firm's) bank account."

Around July 2015, Hetty ordered a handbag from PremiumMall even though there were insufficient funds in her bank account.

The DPP added: "As such, while entering the payment details to PremiumMall, the accused deliberately opted for the bank transfer to be carried out on the following day.

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"The accused knew that by doing so, she would be able to obtain a screenshot of the payment details before any monies would be transferred to the (firm's) bank account."

Hetty then sent a screenshot of the transaction to Ms Lee who trusted the offender and delivered the handbag without ensuring that the money was in the firm's bank account.

By using a similar method, Hetty continued cheating Ms Lee after this and her offences finally came to light in 2018 when PremiumMall conducted an internal audit.

Investigations revealed that Hetty had failed to make payments on 161 occasions between July 2015 and March 2018. To date, she has made a partial restitution of $17,976.

For each count of cheating, she could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.