Sportswear salesman fined for taking bribes to reserve limited edition sneakers

[ASEAN NOW News]

Muhammad Faiz Amy Jasman arrives at the State Courts on Mar 17, 2022.

 

SINGAPORE: A former sales associate of sportswear store AW LAB admitted on Thursday (Mar 17) to accepting bribes in exchange for reserving limited edition sneakers reports CNA.

 

Muhammad Faiz Amy Jasman, 30, obtained S$3,795 in "reservation fees" from a man named Bryan Fong, who would then resell the shoes for profit.

 

Faiz was one of three men charged in the case.

 

He was fined S$10,000 and given a penalty of S$$5,295 after pleading guilty. 

 

He has yet to disgorge the reservation fees he made from the offences.

 

Another man, Xavier Goh Yixuan, who was an assistant store manager at Foot Locker, is accused of receiving more than S$12,000 in bribes. His case has yet to be concluded.

 

The last man was Meng Fanxuan, a reseller who gave bribes for information on when the limited-edition shoes would be launched. He was fined S$20,000 last December after pleading guilty.

 

The court heard that in 2020, Faiz worked at the Wisma Atria outlet of AW LAB, which has since ceased operations in Singapore.

 

He listed a pair of sneakers on Carousell and was contacted by Fong in response to the listing between July and August 2020.

 

Faiz told Fong that he worked at AW LAB. Fong then asked if Faiz could help to reserve the listed sneakers on his behalf and offered money for every reserved pair.

 

"The accused knew that he was not permitted to reserve the sneakers and that it was wrong to do so. Despite this, he accepted Bryan's offer," said the prosecution.

 

AW LAB did not carry out official releases of limited-edition sneakers, unlike other stores.

 

It received deliveries of the sneakers much later, with employees informed of the arrival of the stock the day before.

 

The two men worked out an arrangement where Faiz would reserve a pair of sneakers based on information from Fong.

 

Faiz would then get Fong to transfer the purchase price of the sneakers and the reservation fees to his wife's bank account.

 

Faiz's wife would then buy the reserved sneakers from the Wisma Atria store a few days later, and Fong would collect them from her.

 

Faiz sought his wife's help as he was unable to buy the sneakers as a store employee. He also enlisted friends to help circumvent a store policy that limited each customer to five pairs of sneakers.

 

They carried out this scheme on four occasions between Sep 11 and Oct 8, 2020.

 

Fong bought a total of 49 pairs of sneakers using this method, transferring nearly S$10,000 to Faiz through his wife.

 

The scheme allowed Fong to secure the limited-edition sneakers ahead of the general public and without having to queue at the store.

 

He resold them, earning a total estimated profit of S$800 to S$2,000, or between S$20 and S$50 per pair.

 

District Judge Wong Li Tein told the court that Faiz's "dishonest profiteering conduct" meant members of the public would have to pay resellers more for the shoes, instead of getting them from the store.

 

She also dismissed the notion that the customers could have just bought the shoes from other stores, pointing out that the "intrinsic value" of the sneakers was that they were rare.

 

[ezzra]

Just when you thought you have heard about every possible rorts in the system comes the worse of the worse, a salesman take a bribe to reserve a special edition footwear, the audacity of the man, send him to life in prison for his heinous crimes i say...

[JeffersLos]

7 minutes ago, ASEAN NOW News said:

obtained S$3,795 in "reservation fees" from a man named Bryan Fong, who would then resell the shoes for profit.

Sold his sole to Bryan.