A 30-year-old woman went on a 16-day spending spree, racking up S$455.72 in purchases of groceries, clothes and food with a credit card she had found in a female toilet at Jurong East Mall.
But her spree came to a halt on Dec 4 last year when she tried to buy a S$3.20 burger at a 7-Eleven store using the credit card.
The transaction was declined and Loke was subsequently arrested two weeks later.
On Monday (June 3), she pleaded guilty to one charge of dishonest misappropriation and another charge under the Computer Misuse Act. She was also convicted of six charges of cheating.
To test if the credit card was still working, she charged a single cent to it when she returned to her workplace, the restaurant, before voiding the transaction.
A colleague advised her to hand over the credit card to someone from OCBC Bank, which had a branch in the basement, but she had other ideas.
Lawyer sought a fine of not more than S$1,000.
He said in mitigation that although his client was not facing any financial difficulty, she was not from a rich family either and “barely makes enough”.
the woman, who has a 21-month-old daughter, was her family’s sole breadwinner as her husband was unemployed, he added. Her mother-in-law also suffers from diabetes and kidney failure.
“She is not saying she should not be punished. But at the same time, she has no (past criminal) record and has been a law abiding citizen till now.”
“She did not steal the card, she picked it up. It’s a lapse of judgement,” said the lawyer, who asked the court to “temper justice with mercy”