SINGAPORE — She was meant to help elders as part of her job, but took an 84-year-old woman’s bank card under the guise of helping to check if she had received a government payout.

Choo Lay Ping then illicitly withdrew more than S$18,000 from the victim’s account over several months, using the money on her personal expenses such as bills and her children’s pocket money.

On Tuesday (April 19), Choo, 48, was jailed for 10 months after pleading guilty to a single cheating charge. Another theft charge was taken into consideration for sentencing.

The Singaporean began working as a befriender of senior citizens for social enterprise NTUC Health in mid-2019, the court heard.

She would be assigned five senior citizens whom she visited on a weekly basis.

She was paid S$7 for each visit, which typically lasted half an hour, where she would assess and record their moods, living conditions, medication management, signs of worsening conditions such as loss of weight, and other requests such as meals.

When Choo was assigned to be the victim’s befriender, the victim asked her to buy medicine from a pharmacy to treat some pain in her leg, handing over her ATM card and the personal identification number (PIN) for it.

While at the ATM, Choo realised that the victim had about S$30,000 in her account. She then withdrew S$1,000 without the victim’s consent or knowledge.

She lied to the older woman that she had only withdrawn S$50.

LIED ABOUT GOVT PAYOUT

During her visits, Choo would also read the victim’s letters to her. She then discovered that the victim was eligible for a government payout, so she hatched a plan to cheat more money from the woman.

Choo began asking the victim for her bank card and PIN, saying she would help her to find out if the payout had been credited to her bank account.

Between March 3 and Sept 30 last year, Choo used this method to make 26 unauthorised withdrawals amounting to S$18,320. The individual sums ranged from S$200 to S$1,000.

These withdrawals were documented in the victim’s bank book or captured by closed-circuit television cameras at the ATMs.

Choo used ATMs at Boon Lay Shopping Centre or a market in Boon Lay, then returned the victim’s bank card to her and claimed that the Government had not credited the payout yet.

Choo paid for her own utilities, telephone, internet and dental bills with the money, and gave some to her children for their pocket money as well.

Her crimes were uncovered when the victim updated her bank book at the ATM and discovered the withdrawals. She then got her son to make a police report on Oct 4 last year.

The court heard that Choo was fined S$900 in 2011 for theft, and fined another S$3,000 for the same kind of offence.

In mitigation, she told the court through an interpreter that she had told the investigation officer of her willingness to make restitution to the victim in instalments if she could find a job. However, she is now unemployed.

She added that she has two teenage children and her husband, who is the sole breadwinner, would have difficulty being the only one to support the family due to his heart disease.

In sentencing Choo, District Judge Tan Jen Tse noted that she had targeted a “vulnerable aged victim” and abused the victim’s trust.

She could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined for cheating.