Smart Jiuhu Bayee embrace ChatGPT to Huat big big…dimjee now get 2yrs free long stay at Changi Leesort, really 缅北 grade de woh?

[k1976]

Man gets 20 months' jail for fraudulently obtaining more than S$27,000 in Marina Square e-vouchers​

Aravindran Vallaban, 26, created 2,172 fraudulent Marina Square membership accounts to obtain the e-vouchers as part of a referral programme.

Aravindran Vallaban arriving at the State Courts on Jan 2, 2026. (Photo: CNA/Raydza Rahman)



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Daphne Yow
02 Jan 2026 06:34PM (Updated: 02 Jan 2026 06:50PM)
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Read a summary of this article on FAST.


FAST
SINGAPORE: A man who was working as a customer relations officer at Marina Square Shopping Mall used his position to fraudulently obtain S$27,915 (US$21,700) in e-vouchers for use in the mall.

Aravindran Vallaban, a 26-year-old Malaysian, was on Friday (Jan 2) sentenced to 20 months' jail after he pleaded guilty to one charge of cheating and dishonestly inducing a delivery of property under Section 420 of the Penal Code.

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Three other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Between May 13, 2024, and Apr 3, 2025, he created 2,172 fraudulent Marina Square membership accounts. This was after the mall launched a referral campaign in April 2024 to increase membership applications.

The referral campaign required new membership applicants to use referral codes from existing members. Upon a new member's successful registration, both the new member and the referring member would receive S$5 in e-vouchers credited to their accounts, which could be used at stores in the mall or transferred as e-gifts to other accounts.

To complete the registration, new members had to verify their identities using one-time passwords (OTPs) that would be generated and sent to their mobile devices.

WHAT HAPPENED​

At the time, Aravindran was employed as an assistant customer relations supervisor at Singapore Land Group, the parent company of Marina Centre Holdings, which in turn owns Marina Square. His job duties included handling customer enquiries and assisting with the mall's promotions and redemptions.

As part of his role, he was given access to an in-house customer relationship management system used to manage customer data for the mall. Through his account, he could view store listings, member lists and voucher issuance details.

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[k1976]

His supervisor also had access to the system, but possessed superior access rights that gave him access to additional information and features unavailable to the lower-ranking customer relations officers.

With his rights, the supervisor was able to view all the OTPs that had been generated and sent to the phone numbers of people who had signed up for Marina Square membership. This was so that the customer relations staff could manually retrieve an OTP and send it to a customer in the event that the customer did not receive the OTP.

For convenience, the supervisor shared his login credentials for his management system account with Aravindran, so that Aravindran could assist customers who needed help in obtaining their OTPs without needing to consult the supervisor.

Aravindran used his access to the OTPs to circumvent the Marina Square membership account verification process and create the fraudulent accounts.

He would first generate fake phone numbers using ChatGPT and use those numbers to sign up for new membership accounts.

He would then use his supervisor's management system account to manually obtain the OTPs associated with the fake numbers to complete the registration of the fraudulent accounts.

 

[syed putra]

There is some benefit using AI after all.