SINGAPORE — He ran several scams when he was just 17 and 18 years old, duping people into giving him money for concert tickets to watch popular performers such as American pop star Britney Spears and English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.

Neo Kuan Yong also got others to believe that he would pay their monthly bills and termination fees for mobile phone subscription plans, if they signed up with various telecommunications companies and gave him the SIM cards and phones. He promised them commission fees for each phone they supplied.

After receiving the phones, Neo would sell them online or through secondhand shops to fund his gambling addiction, or use the money for other personal needs.

Court documents showed that in total, Neo cheated his victims of S$231,699 worth of property and money, and he did much of it through e-marketplace Carousell.

On Thursday (Aug 22), Neo, now 20, pleaded guilty to 30 counts of cheating. The offences occurred from September 2016 to October 2017.

Another 200 similar charges, including theft and causing hurt, will be taken into consideration for sentencing next week. He remains out on bail of S$30,000.

District Judge May Mesenas called for reports to assess whether he is suitable for probation or reformative training. The latter is a regimented rehabilitation programme for offenders under the age of 21 who commit relatively serious crimes.

WHAT HE DID

The court heard that Neo first broke the law in September 2016, when he conspired with another 18-year-old — whose identity was not stated — to cheat the telco M1.

Neo used an 11B military identification card belonging to someone else to sign up for a subscription plan with M1. An Apple iPad Pro worth S$1,238 was then delivered to his co-conspirator. It was not stated how he got hold of the 11B. 

Neo later sold the tablet to fund his gambling addiction and for his personal expenses.

The next year, he decided to cheat more people.

Around May 2017, he deceived several people into believing he was selling various concert tickets when he did not have them. He sold Britney Spears tickets to one victim for S$400, and tickets to Ed Sheeran’s concert for S$1,500.

The next month, he laid plans to cheat people by using various accounts to post several advertisements on Facebook and Carousell, claiming he could help others earn fast cash.

When interested parties contacted him, he would then take them to mobile-phone shops around Singapore to sign up for subscription plans. He would give them the cash required for any administrative fees and to buy the new phones they were eligible for after their sign-up.

In some cases, Neo gave them a commission fee ranging from S$200 to S$300 for each phone they handed to him. He also offered them a referral fee of S$150 to S$200 for each friend they referred to him.

Some of the locations for these transactions included Planet Telecoms at Causeway Point in Woodlands, the M1 and Singtel stores at Bugis Junction, and StarHub and Singtel stores at Waterway Point in Punggol.

He has not made any restitution to his victims.

Around September 2017, Neo also took advantage of his own phone replacement policy, which allows customers to get another phone if they had signed up for their telco’s phone protection services.

Neo contacted the phone protection service on its hotline, saying he had lost his phone. For verification, he provided the mobile number and identification details of a man he had cheated through his first telco scam. The man had handed over two iPhone 7 Plus phones to him the previous month.

Neo then called the man, saying the iPhone 7 Plus phones that he handed over previously had gone missing and a courier would be sending new ones to his home. Neo told him to give the new phones to him after they were delivered, which he did.