Catching a scammer is not as easy as it sounds, especially if one of them happens to be your employee. 

Curtain supplier The Curtain Expert recently posted a TikTok video exposing one of their employees who allegedly cheated them out of $60,000. 

The company's owner Andy Er posted a video on July 12 which detailed his discovery that his employee was cheating the company.

In the video, Er shared that his employee, Ah Wei, a Malaysian, pocketed the deposits and balances of some of the curtain service jobs. 

He had also been allegedly sending fake invoices to an interior design firm which works with The Curtain Expert.

Er said Ah Wei told customers that he's a partner of the company and allegedly gave them his personal PayNow UEN number for the customers to make payments to.

To cover his tracks, he also changed the customers' mobile numbers in the company system, making them uncontactable.

Ah Wei was finally caught when Er spotted a discrepancy on July 4 when the company funds did not tally.

Er said that there were four curtain jobs marked as uncompleted since Dec 2022 but upon calling the customers involved to confirm the status of the jobs, they replied saying that the job was completed and paid for fully. 

When Er tracked the records, he found Ah Wei to be the perpetrator and that he pocketed at least $60,000 from the company.

Er added that some customers have also reached out complaining that Ah Wei's curtain jobs were incomplete despite paying in full.

Er told AsiaOne he did not want to escalate matters by going to the police, and that Ah Wei has said that he was wiling to repay the money owed to the company on an instalment basis. 

"We still think for him, how is he going to survive with his basic pay and try to help him as much as possible," said Er.

Making the same mistake twice

Unfortunately, Ah Wei was once again caught pocketing $1,250 of the company's fund earlier this week, said Er.

Er said: "I have given him so many chances, yet he still wants to lie."

Er told AsiaOne that this is first time that such an incident has happened in their company and he urged affected customers to reach out to him.

He said that Ah Wei has only returned $6,250 to date and that he is currently detained by the police.

Er added that the case is undergoing police investigation and as of July 10, Ah Wei's passport has been detained and he's still in Singapore.

AsiaOne has reached out to the police for comment. 

Netizens were impressed by the way Er handled the situation and how he took full responsibility for Ah Wei's mistake. 

Many also praised Er for being kind towards Ah Wei despite getting scammed by his employee. 

ALSO READ: Woman says she lost $67k after car salesman goes missing, dealership lodges police report over ex-employee

ashwini.balan@asiaone.com

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