It’s great to see how technology these days can serve anyone for whatever purpose they have in mind – be it to connect to others, build relationships, or provide security for transactions made online.
However, we need to take the good things with the bad things, too. One of such is the risk for getting scammed or worse, taken one’s identity to conduct malicious activities against others.
Man who Ripped Off 4 Women Worth SGD 33,500 through Tinder Sent to Jail
A man who befriended four women via popular dating app Tinder with the ulterior motive to persuade them into parting with SGD 33,500 without having even to meet any of them in person, as shared in a report by Yahoo! News Singapore.
Spewing deceitful tales of having lost his wallet or luggage while on a business trip in Japan, Eng How Khiang, 44, lied that he was in need of some money for work and living expenses.
However, after the women have transferred cash to him via his wife’s account, the man altogether stopped contacting any of his prospect dating partners. He didn’t even travel to Japan as he had earlier claimed.
On February 22 (Friday), Eng was sentenced at the State Courts to 19 months in jail after pleading guilty to eight cheating charges involving our victims aged 22 to 27.
For all of his victims, Eng used a single ploy of telling them that he was in Japan where he had lost his wallet. Each time, he asked the women he contacted via Tinder app to transfer him cash ranging from SGD 500 to SGD 3,000 on various occasions. After the transactions have been completed, Eng simply “ghosted” his prospects along with their money, never to be reached again.
For each of these charges, Eng could have been sent to prison for up to 10 years on top of a hefty fine.