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SINGAPORE: For three years, a woman who worked in two beauty salons tricked 24 clients into paying around S $ 632,000 for non-existent packages for skin and body treatments.
Malaysian Ong Siok Yong, 35, was sentenced to four years in jail on Wednesday (March 17) after pleading guilty to two counts of cheating, and three other counts were considered in the sentencing.
The court heard that Ong first perpetrated his plans in 2016, when he was working at the Bottom Slim weight loss company in Nex, a shopping mall in Serangoon.
He came up with the idea for a package that he called a “model package” to sell to customers. Bottom Slim didn’t have such packages, but Ong invented it to entice customers to deposit more money with her and the company.
She presented the packages as those that required customers to use the company’s products and receive facial treatments on a regular basis, and for the firm to photograph them to document their improvements.
In return, customers could use the company’s products and treatments and receive monthly rebates. Ong first tested the idea with family customers and varied the price and terms based on the target’s purchasing power.
In January 2017, he joined Asian Skin Solution skincare company and was manager in charge of the branch at Regency House on Penang Road.
He was later entrusted with a second branch in Novena in April 2017. In his role, he managed the branch’s operations, explained the company’s packages and treatments to clients, and submitted sales reports to the finance department.
He also received commissions for each package he sold to customers. However, Ong continued to mislead customers using the “model package” ruse.
A client agreed to sign up for a model package in August 2018 and transferred more than S $ 23,000 to Ong’s personal bank account, as Ong said his company did not have a bank account.
The client thought that she could use the company’s treatment services at least twice a month, as well as regular use of its products. In exchange for his payment, he was promised monthly repayments of S $ 1,166.60 for 36 months, for a total of S $ 41,997.60.
However, Ong’s plans caught up with her as she could no longer meet the payments promised to clients. He tried to generate more cash by having customers sign up for new versions of his fake packages.
Both Bottom Slim and Asian Skin Solution realized Ong’s ruse and took steps to mitigate their customers’ losses. They are in the process of making arrangements to provide them with treatments and products to compensate them, and they have reimbursed some of the money, the prosecutor said.
In total, 24 victims were defrauded with S $ 632,467, of which almost S $ 270,000 was paid to Ong personally.
CAPITALIZED FROM ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH CLIENTS
The prosecution asked for four years in prison, noting how Ong capitalized on his business relationship with clients and his confidence in his experience to induce them to part with large sums of money.
Even with the companies’ efforts to compensate the victims, the victims are left “in a worrying and unsatisfactory situation,” said Assistant District Attorney Joshua Lim.
After signing up for the bogus packages, they were promised regular payments that included benefits like free plane tickets, hotel stays, and travel allowances.
“The companies have understandably refused to make such payments or provide these benefits. Although some victims may receive facials and products that partially compensate for their losses, this was not the deal they originally made,” Lim said.
WAS “THREATENED” BY BUSINESS OWNER’S WIFE: DEFENSE
Ong’s attorney, Gregory Fong, who represented her under the Criminal Legal Aid Program, said that Ong is a divorced woman who came to Singapore to give her family in Malaysia a better life.
Initially, she helped her ex-husband pay off his debts with his salary, but after their divorce, she used her earnings to support her elderly parents.
He was promoted to the manager position at Asian Skin Solution after “hard work” as an esthetician at Bottom Slim, which was owned and operated, Fong said.
He added that the idea of a package “did not have nefarious purposes”, but was a sales gimmick, since the company allowed its beauticians some leeway and flexibility to decide the price of the products and services they offered to the customers.
Mr. Fong said that this “is a rampant practice in the beauty and weight loss industry.”
He added that his client’s supervisor at the Novena location was the business owner’s wife and “a slave trader” who “constantly threatened” Ong with dismissal and a fine if she was fired.
“Ms. Ong was constantly feeling anxious and concerned due to the threats of the penalty clause in her employment, and she again used her ‘model package’ to entice customers to sign services and products with her point of sale to help to keep their sales numbers in placating the supervisor, “said Mr. Fong.
It was only an internal audit that revealed his crimes, he said, asking for a sentence of between two and three years for Ong.
For each count of cheating, Ong could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
