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.
