Exposed online, Pokemon card seller who allegedly cheated buyers out of $80,000 on Carousell charged
A 29-year-old man was charged in court on Dec 3 with cheating after allegedly duping Carousell buyers into paying $80,000 for Pokemon cards he didn't have.
Stomper John said Eugene Kwek Yi Jun was exposed online by his victims after being accused of scamming people "for a long time".
"Multiple police reports were made," said the Stomper.
A Facebook user posted in a Facebook group called Pokemon Trading Card Games Singapore and Malaysia on Dec 1: "I encountered this Carousell seller 'mrkwek' and he has been dragging delivery for me since launch until now. No delivery of goods, no refund. Now slow reply and still delaying."
In the PokemonTCG_Singapore subreddit, other buyers also posted about their dealings with "mrkwek", one of them in September.
The Carousell account under "mrkwek" has since been disabled.
Officers from the Commercial Affairs Department arrested Kwek on Dec 1.
The police said preliminary investigations revealed that Kwek had advertised the pre-order sales of limited-edition Pokemon trading cards on Carousell.
After the victims made payment via bank transfers, they did not receive the cards.
When questioned, Kwek would claim that the delivery was delayed and eventually became unresponsive.
He was believed to be involved in at least 111 of such cases with total losses amounting to at least $80,000.
Kwek was charged with cheating one victim who paid $1,800 after being deceived into believing Kwek had Pokemon cards for sale between Oct 23 and Dec 1.
The offence of cheating carries an imprisonment term of up to 10 years and a fine.
According to his LinkedIn page, Kwek has been a senior sales manager at PingPong Payments since June. Before that, he was a senior client advisor at Moolahgo, which provides financial services, for less than two years.
His LinkedIn page also stated that he has a Bachelor of Science in business administration and management from the University of London, which he attended from 2020 to 2022.
