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SINGAPORE – A man was jailed for seven weeks on Wednesday (October 21) for filing multiple false travel insurance claims about his damaged luggage to mislead AXA Insurance out of more than $ 3,000.
Goh Tian Lee, 52, admitted that he had misled the insurance company into believing that his Rimowa luggage had been damaged due to mishandling on various flights.
The court heard that Goh made these fraudulent claims multiple times by submitting the same photos of a damaged Rimowa silver piece of luggage.
Goh pleaded guilty to three counts of cheating on Wednesday (October 21) involving $ 1,600. Two other related cheating charges involving $ 1,775 were taken into consideration in his sentencing.
Assistant District Attorney Jane Lim said Goh first made a successful claim based on photographs of a damaged Rimowa silver bag, which included close-up shots of a damaged wheel mount and a dent in the side of the suitcase.
He recycled the same photos to file multiple fraudulent claims.
In an attempt to make it look like he was making claims for different pieces of luggage entirely, Goh removed various stickers on Rimowa’s bag to make the photographs look more legitimate.
In August 2018, he filed a claim stating that his luggage had been damaged due to mishandling on a Singapore Airlines flight from Vietnam to Singapore. AXA paid Goh $ 800 at the time.
Goh filed another claim in March 2019, after returning to Singapore from a trip to Myanmar on February 28 of that year. Once again, he used recycled photos of the bag for which he had already been compensated and claimed that it had been damaged due to mishandling on a Myanmar National Airlines flight he had taken in February 2019.
For this false claim, Goh received another $ 800 from AXA.
He subsequently filed another bogus insurance claim in September 2019, again claiming that his luggage had been damaged due to mishandling on a return flight on Singapore Airlines from Myanmar.
This time, AXA did not disburse the funds and conducted internal controls, as Goh had made more than four separate claims in nine months.
The company found similarities in the photos Goh had submitted for all of his travel insurance claims, raising suspicions.
When AXA contacted Goh and asked for more photographic evidence of the damaged luggage, Goh lied and said that he had disposed of the luggage when he had not. The Rimowa luggage in question was later found at Goh’s home.
He also told AXA, when asked, that he “would not consider dealing with them in the future, if they did not expedite their claim.”
AXA filed a police report against Goh on October 15, 2019.
DPP Lim said that Goh’s crimes were clearly planned and premeditated. They were not specific crimes either, as they had been committed repeatedly over a considerable period of more than a year.
“The defendant was emboldened by the fact that it was easy for him to make such claims, and he deliberately planned to make subsequent claims. He also relapsed several times and intended to continue until he was caught,” DPP Lim said.
The DPP asked for a deterrent sentence, as Goh’s crimes involved a financial institution and concerned the provision of economic and financial services.
Defense attorney Audrey Koo said in her mitigation statement that Goh had realized her mistake and was sorry, and had fully reinstated AXA.
In a statement issued after the case, Ho Kai Weng, executive director of the Singapore General Insurance Association (GIA), said the association works closely with the Police Department of Business Affairs.
“Members of the public play an important role in mitigating insurance fraud. If you are contacted to participate in insurance fraud or have first-hand information, report it to the GIA Insurance Fraud Tip-off scheme and receive a cash reward. up to $ 10,000 if the information provided leads to a successful conviction, “said Ho.
For cheating crimes, one can be jailed for three years, fined, or both.
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