\n<\/p>\n
SINGAPORE \u2013 A customer relations officer at Marina Square created 2,172 fraudulent accounts in the shopping mall\u2019s membership phone application to receive e-vouchers worth nearly $28,000 under a referral scheme. <\/p>\n
Aravindran Vallaban, 26, was sentenced to a year and eight months\u2019 jail on Jan 2 after he pleaded guilty to a cheating charge.<\/p>\n
He used the e-vouchers for his personal expenditure at Marina Square, and has since made full restitution of the amount he gained from cheating.<\/p>\n
At the time of the offence, he was an assistant customer relations supervisor at real estate developer Singapore Land Group, which runs Marina Square and\u00a0is the parent company of MCH Holdings. <\/p>\n
When he was working at Marina Square, his duties included managing the daily operations at an information counter, handling customer inquiries, and assisting with the shopping mall\u2019s promotions. <\/p>\n
In April 2024, MCH launched a membership referral campaign as part of its promotional efforts for the mall.<\/p>\n
Upon the successful registration of each new member, both the new member and the referring member would receive $5 e-vouchers credited to their respective Marina Square membership accounts for use at the mall\u2019s stores.<\/p>\n
To complete their registration, new members had to verify their identities by keying in a one-time password (OTP) that would be sent to their mobile devices.<\/p>\n
As part of his job, Aravindran could access an in-house customer relationship management system through a computer terminal located at the information counter.<\/p>\n
Through the portal, he could view information such as store listings, member lists and voucher issuance details.<\/p>\n
His direct supervisor\u2019s account on the same portal also allowed the user to view all OTPs that had been generated and sent out.<\/p>\n
For convenience, the supervisor shared his log-in details with Aravindran so that the latter \u201ccould assist customers whenever they needed assistance to obtain their OTPs without having to consult (the supervisor)\u201d, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Ryan Lim.<\/p>\n
Between May 13, 2024, and April 3, 2025, Aravindran created 2,172 fraudulent accounts in the Marina Square membership phone application.<\/p>\n
DPP Lim added: \u201cThe accused circumvented the account verification process by generating fake phone numbers using ChatGPT, and would populate the membership sign-up forms in the Marina Square phone application with these fake phone numbers. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe would then manually obtain the OTPs… thereby allowing him to complete the registration of the fraudulent accounts using the fake phone numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
In total, Aravindran cheated MCH on more than 2,000 occasions. <\/p>\n
His offence came to light when the company\u2019s deputy general manager of marketing noticed that certain member accounts were receiving an unusually large number of referral e-vouchers. <\/p>\n
MCH then discovered that many of the referred accounts had invalid phone numbers. <\/p>\n
Aravindran was caught after a review of internal logs showed that many of the fraudulent accounts shared the same device ID as his own Marina Square membership account.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n