Woman used edited PayNow screenshots to cheat restaurants into delivering over S$9,000 worth of food
The woman transferred money to herself, took a screenshot and doctored it so it looked like she had paid the various restaurants.
File photo of someone using the PayNow e-payments service. (Photo: Gaya Chandramohan)
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SINGAPORE: A woman edited PayNow screenshots to cheat restaurants into delivering over S$9,000 (US$6,900) worth of food to her for more than two years.
Santos-Tumalip Maria Monalyn Bagaporo, a 33-year-old Filipino national, pleaded guilty on Tuesday (Nov 11) to four charges which include cheating and theft.
Another three charges will be considered in sentencing.
The court heard that Bagaporo started ordering food from the Home of Seafood restaurant at Joo Chiat Place in May 2022.
She selected PayNow as the payment method and was required to transfer money using the mobile payment service for the food.
Bagaporo thought of a way to avoid paying. She used PayNow to transfer the amount to herself and took a screenshot of the transaction slip.
She then used an app to edit the screenshot so that the recipient was the Home of Seafood.
Sometimes, she also edited the details of the sender's account, so it appeared like she was making payments from different accounts.
Bagaporo sent these edited screenshots to the restaurant via WhatsApp as proof of payment.
After acknowledging the purported payment, the restaurant would process Bagaporo's order and deliver her food.
Although the restaurant manager checked the screenshots to ensure that the value of the money transferred and the date of the transaction tallied with the order, she did not check bank records to verify that payments had indeed been made.
Over 35 occasions between May 2022 and August 2023, Bagaporo cheated the restaurant in this manner into delivering her food worth about S$3,892.
She did this because she "wanted to order food for her friends and impress them".
In September 2023, the restaurant manager reviewed bank account statements and noticed multiple instances of a customer submitting proof of transfer via PayNow, but no payment had been made.
She lodged a police report stating that a customer had cheated the restaurant.
Bagaporo later used the same method to cheat another restaurant into delivering food to her.
TRICKED ITALIAN RESTAURANT WITH SAME METHOD
Between June 2024 and May 2025, she placed 24 food orders with Italian restaurant Baci Baci via WhatsApp for food worth about S$6,168 in total.
Bagaporo engaged Lalamove, a moving company, to deliver the food to her.
The restaurant discovered on May 25 that no actual payment had been made and lodged a police report.
Bagaporo also admitted to stealing about S$739 worth of groceries from a Giant supermarket outlet in Bedok in November 2024.
Sometime this year, Bagaporo posed as someone named "Tom" and texted the number of a hair salon in Stamford Road, claiming that she wanted to purchase a hair treatment voucher for her sister.
She sent a fabricated payment screenshot for the voucher and later went down to the salon and used the voucher to pay for hair treatment worth S$381.50.
That same day, Bagaporo texted the WhatsApp account again and asked to buy another gift voucher. She sent another fabricated screenshot showing payment.
The director of the salon checked and saw that the payment had not been received. He also realised that he had not received payment for the first gift voucher.
The employees of the salon repeatedly reminded Bagaporo to make payment for both gift vouchers in the following weeks.
Bagaporo gave excuses for why she could not pay, and the salon director lodged a police report in July.
When contacted by the police to report for statement taking, Bagaporo deleted all WhatsApp messages with the salon's account, obstructing the course of justice.
Bagaporo later made restitution to the Home of Seafood and the salon. She has been remanded since September.
The prosecution sought 23.5 to 27 months' jail for Bagaporo, saying her "flagrant and recalcitrant offending behaviour" must be met with a commensurate sentence.
She had reoffended while on court bail and repeatedly perpetrated the same dishonest scheme to cheat businesses into providing her with food or services without paying, said the prosecutor.
Bagaporo was represented by Ms Lim Lei Theng from Allen & Gledhill under the Enhanced Guidance for Plea Scheme.
She will be sentenced later this week.
The penalties for cheating are a jail term of up to 10 years, a fine, or both.
