Car salesman with gambling addiction cheats 6 people of $120,000
To fuel his gambling addiction, a car salesman turned to tricking six people – including his own neighbour – into depositing over $120,000 into his bank account.
The victims thought they were transferring money to Privilege Motors, the company Edwin Toh Jing Wei was working for, to purchase vehicles.
Toh, 27, was sentenced to 21 months’ jail on Dec 19 after he pleaded guilty to three counts of cheating, with three similar offences taken into consideration for his sentencing.
The court heard that in July 2023, Toh became addicted to gambling and incurred about $50,000 in debts after a “losing streak”. He decided to cheat customers to repay his debts and feed his gambling addiction.
In total, Toh cheated six victims of $128,603. Court documents detailed the plight of three victims.
On Aug 27, 2023, Toh sold a Mercedes-Benz car to a woman for $190,000 at Privilege Motors. Two days later, he instructed her to pay $29,563 – the purported outstanding payment for the car – into his bank account.
Toh handed the car to the woman on Sept 5, 2023, and informed her that the transfer of ownership would be effected on the next day.
However, the company informed her the next day that they did not receive the payment and that she had been scammed by Toh.
On Sept 4, 2023, Toh asked a man who had bought a Mercedes-Benz vehicle for $235,000 from Privilege Motors to transfer $65,164 to his account.
The man’s bank called and informed him that the account belonged to Toh and was not a corporate account. When the man called Toh, he showed the man a screenshot of another vehicle sale transaction into the account.
The man proceeded with the transfer, only to find out later from the company that Toh had run off with the money.
In the case involving his neighbour, Toh took him to view a Mazda 3 car on Sept 1, 2023, which the neighbour agreed to buy for $16,000.
Toh instructed the man to pay $15,835 into his bank account. After receiving the payment, Toh lied that the car would be handed to him a week later as the owner was overseas.
When the day came, the neighbour tried contacting and looking for Toh, to no avail. He contacted Toh’s family members and found out that Toh had been arrested.
Toh later returned the full sum to his neighbour, but has not made any restitution to his company or the other five victims.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Maximilian Chew asked for 22 to 26 months’ jail for Toh, noting that he had abused the trust reposed in him as a sales employee.
Toh’s lawyer, Mr Kalaithasan Karuppaya, said in mitigation that his client is remorseful and has since excluded himself from gambling.
The lawyer noted that the offences were out of Toh’s character, as he had “demonstrated exceptional professionalism in his work previously”. He also had no prior offences.
A spokesman for Privilege Motors had earlier said the company has since honoured all the related purchases, even though Toh had taken the money.
The spokesman also said that when the company found out about the alleged scam, it immediately made a police report and terminated Toh’s employment.
He added: “We also reached out to each affected customer immediately and have delivered the cars. We hope that people will continue to trust Privilege Motors.”
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