A 33-year-old woman pleaded guilty on Tuesday, November 11, to four charges which include cheating and theft.
This comes after Santos-Tumalip Maria Monalyn Bagaporo, a 33-year-old Filipino national, edited PayNow screenshots and cheated restaurants into delivering over S$9,000 (US$6,900) worth of food to her for more than two years.
The court will consider three more charges for sentencing.
According to the court, Bagaporo began placing orders for meals at Joo Chiat Place's Home of Seafood restaurant in May 2022.
In order to pay for the food, she had to use the mobile payment service and choose PayNow as the payment option.
Bagaporo devised a method to evade payment. She took a screenshot of the transaction slip after transferring the money to herself using PayNow.
She then edited the screenshot with an app to make the Home of Seafood the recipient.
She occasionally changed the sender's account information as well, giving the impression that she was using different accounts to make payments.
Bagaporo used WhatsApp to send the restaurant these altered screenshots as payment confirmation.
The eatery would process Bagaporo's order and deliver her food after accepting the alleged payment.
The restaurant manager did not check bank records to confirm that payments had been made, even though she looked at the screenshots to make sure the date of the transaction and the amount of money transferred matched the order.
In this way, Bagaporo defrauded the restaurant on more than 35 occasions between May 2022 and August 2023 into delivering her food, which was valued at approximately S$3,892.
She did this because she "wanted to order food for her friends and impress them".
When the restaurant manager looked over bank account statements in September 2023, she saw several cases where a customer had used PayNow to submit proof of transfer but no money had been transferred.
She reported a customer who had defrauded the restaurant to the police.
Later, Bagaporo deceived another restaurant into delivering food to her by using the same technique.
She used WhatsApp to place 24 orders for food from the Italian restaurant Baci Baci between June 2024 and May 2025, totaling approximately S$6,168.
Bagaporo hired a moving company, Lalamove, to bring the food to her.
On May 25, the restaurant filed a police report after realizing that no payment had been made.
Additionally, Bagaporo acknowledged stealing approximately S$739 worth of groceries in November 2024 from a Bedok Giant supermarket.
At some point this year, Bagaporo pretended to be "Tom" and texted the Stamford Road hair salon's number, saying she wanted to buy her sister a voucher for a hair treatment.
She went to the salon and used the voucher to pay for a hair treatment worth S$381.50 after sending a fake screenshot of her payment.
Bagaporo texted the WhatsApp account once more that day, requesting that another gift voucher be purchased. Another fake screenshot of payment was sent by her.
After verifying, the salon's director discovered that the money was missing. Additionally, he discovered that he had not been paid for the initial gift certificate.
Bagaporo was reminded several times by the salon staff to pay for both gift vouchers in the upcoming weeks.
In July, the salon director filed a police report after Bagaporo provided justifications for her inability to pay.
Bagaporo blocked the administration of justice by deleting all WhatsApp messages associated with the salon's account when the police called to report for a statement taking.
Later, Bagaporo reimbursed the salon and the Home of Seafood. Since September, she has been under remand.
Because of her "flagrant and recalcitrant offending behavior," the prosecution requested that Bagaporo be sentenced to 23.5 to 27 months in prison.
According to the prosecutor, she had committed the same dishonest scheme repeatedly to defraud companies into giving her food or services without paying, and she had committed new crimes while on court bail.
Lim Lei Theng of Allen & Gledhill represented Bagaporo under the Enhanced Guidance for Plea Scheme.
Later this week, she will receive her sentence.
Cheating can result in a fine, a jail sentence of up to 10 years, or both.
