Jail for admin assistant, 23, who illegally gave herself S$3,900 of NTUC Linkpoints; boss says she will keep her job
Liew Yu Er, 23, was sentenced to two weeks' jail after admitting that she had credited herself with more than S$3,900 worth of NTUC Linkpoints.
SINGAPORE — Under pressure to repay loan sharks, an administrative assistant at a dance academy decided to illegally credit herself with more than S$3,900 worth of NTUC Linkpoints intended for her employer's customers.
Using the points, Liew Yu Er offset the cost of food she bought from a supermarket and bought mobile phones that she resold to others, among other things.
On Wednesday (May 3), Liew, 23, was sentenced to two weeks’ jail by a district court judge after she pleaded guilty to a single charge related to cheating.
In a rare move, Liew's employer spoke in court in support of a lenient sentence and said the company, Dancepointe Academy, was giving the young woman a second chance by continuing to employ her.
WHAT HAPPENED
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Benedict Chan told the court that the Malaysian national’s offences took place between Aug 21 and Nov 15 in 2022.
At the time, she was employed as an administrative assistant at the firm's dance school at Downtown East in Pasir Ris.
Part of Liew’s responsibilities was to credit Linkpoints to customers of Dancepointe Academy who had made payments qualifying for the consumer loyalty reward points administered by NTUC Link.
The points can be used to offset the cost of purchases at NTUC FairPrice supermarkets.
DPP Chan said Liew’s employer was a business partner of NTUC Link and had purchased the Linkpoints from the company.
During the period of her offending, Liew had credited a total of 391,854.34 Linkpoints valued at S$3,918.54 to her NTUC Plus! card over 145 transactions.
In order to accumulate 391,854.34 Linkpoints at the time, DPP Chan said an individual would have had to complete S$292,428.60 worth of transactions.
The prosecutor said that initially, Liew credited herself with only Linkpoints that customers had not redeemed.
However, she later started crediting Linkpoints to her card even where there was no qualifying transaction by any of Dancepointe Academy’s customers.
Aside from using the Linkpoints to buy food at FairPrice outlets, Liew also used them to purchase five Vivo mobile phones, which she later resold for S$1,200.
DPP Chan said she did this to “obtain money to pay off loans to unlicensed moneylenders”.
Liew’s offences came to light only on Nov 15 in 2022 when an NTUC Link administration manager, Ms Tan Yi Lin, received an enquiry from FairPrice to verify the number of Linkpoints belonging to Liew.
Ms Tan eventually contacted the owner of Dancepointe Academy, Mr Tang Ee Liang, on Nov 23 regarding the apparently fraudulent transactions by his employee, which led to Liew’s arrest on Nov 30.
GENUINELY REMORSEFUL
In seeking a lighter sentence, Liew, who was unrepresented in court, claimed that she committed the offence as she had been a victim of a scam and needed money urgently.
Speaking through a Mandarin interpreter, she also said that she owed money to unlicensed money lenders and, as a result, had very little savings.
“In order to make ends meet, I decided to use the Linkpoints to buy items for myself to meet my daily needs,” she said.
DPP Chan, who sought a jail term of between two and three weeks, told the court there were some mitigating factors in Liew’s case, given that she was “genuinely remorseful” for her actions and had already made restitution of about S$2,000.
Also present in court on Wednesday was Liew’s employer and bailor, Mr Tang, who was allowed by District Judge Kow Keng Siong to speak in support of a more lenient sentence for his employee.
Mr Tang said that Liew is young and was relatively new to the company when she committed her offence, having joined only last year.
As part of her training, she was given instructions on the requirements for issuing Linkpoints to customers.
However, speaking generally, he added that not all points systems are created equal and, in some instances, they can even be “given out freely” to someone just for completing a survey.
This, he said, could have given Liew the impression that her acts would not have cost anyone anything, when it is not the case.
"I realise, in our training programme, such things should be emphasised going forward," Mr Tang said.
"As a small SME, we don't do very regular audits, in other words when something like this happens, temptation is there. By the time it materialises, it's no longer an insignificant amount."
Mr Tang also said that he had been aware of Liew’s financial problems, but due to the company’s policy, it had been unable to lend her any assistance.
That said, Mr Tang said Liew was a good employee and the firm wanted to help her.
Dancepointe Academy had continued to employ Liew despite her offences and had redeployed her to another outlet.
For her offences, Liew could have been jailed for up to three years, or fined, or punished with both jail and a fine.
