A Singaporean man caught red-handed on camera pocketing a pair of spectacle frames in Malaysia agreed to pay retroactively today after begging the store to take down the incriminating footage, according to the shop’s owner.
The suspected shoplifter yesterday asked the shop to remove surveillance footage showing him filch expensive frames then pay for an inexpensive item, according to the irate but not humorless shopkeeper, who first wrote about the apparent theft earlier this week.
“[Brother] Ben Lee, you buy a RM120 frame but accidentally take my Japan frame (handmade), please return it to me or I will report police, thank you. Oh ya, just now you used a credit card to make payment so we can find out your details. Enjoy your holiday in [Malacca],” read the Tuesday post on the Young Look Vision store’s Facebook page.
Ben Lee, the name the man wrote on a receipt, turned out to be fake. The store has declined to disclose the man’s real name.
The store, located in the city’s popular Mahkota Parade shopping center, said the man used a Singaporean credit card to pay for a lesser item worth about S$40 at the Malacca store before lifting the much more expensive frames.
In an update yesterday written in Chinese, the shop said that the man called and pleaded for the CCTV footage to be taken down from its page, adding that he would pay for the item, said to cost RM1,400 (S$460), that he is accused of stealing.
Young Look Vision’s owner, Nickr Ng, 37, told Coconuts Singapore on Thursday afternoon that the man was indeed Singaporean and had agreed to pay for the stolen item.
The payment is being processed and would take a few days to complete, Ng added.
“Yesterday around 5pm the person already called me from Singapore and today morning around, 10.20am transferred money to my company account, but need to take two to three working days,” Ng wrote in a message.
A copy of the bank transfer seen by Coconuts Singapore showed it initiated today at a UOB branch in Clementi.
“He kept calling me hoping that I would delete the video because all his friends and family kept calling him to ask why he did this. And his reply to me was ‘I just play play only don’t know can become so serious case,’” he added.
The short clip of the incident, which has been making the social media rounds, begins with the man standing with a woman in the store.
After the woman leaves, the man walks toward the frames that caught his eye, picks them up for a closer look and then walks away, casually placing them in his pocket.
He then walks to the cashier where he appears to purchase another item.
The store, which did not have anti-theft sensors installed, noticed the Niwa Masahiko frames missing while checking stock a few hours after the Singaporean left the store early Tuesday afternoon, according to Ng.
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