Two local shutterbugs set trap to catch alleged scammer

The duo, victims of camera rental scams, believe other perpetrators are still at large

- Rhea Yasmine

Smarting after being scammed out of thousands of dollars' worth of camera equipment, two local photographers decided to fight back by laying a trap to nab the scammer.

This eventually led to the arrest of a 21-year-old man, but the shutterbugs believe he is not the only perpetrator of the scam, and that others behind it are still at large.

Three victims whom The Sunday Times spoke to said that in this scam, which first came to light in September, the scammer would borrow camera equipment from those loaning out their gadgets and, instead of returning them, sell off the goods to second-hand shops.

The perpetrator, or perpetrators, found two of the victims whom ST spoke to through listings to rent out personal photography equipment on Carousell, while the third is the owner of a camera rental business.

By the time the victims realised that they had been scammed, their items had in most cases already been sold off to second-hand shops or, worse, resold by these shops.

In hopes of putting an end to the scam, two of the victims decided to set up a trap by luring one of the scammers to a location.

One of the two is Mr Marcus Chong, 31, a photographer and owner of camera equipment rental house JustRentLah.

Mr Chong told ST his business would have lost about $16,000, had he not acted quickly and set the trap. The scam ended up costing JustRentLah $1,650. About $1,300 of it was spent buying back equipment that had been sold off to a second-hand shop.

Mr Chong suspected that JustRentLah had been scammed after he saw an Instagram post about the scammer, which was shared with him by another victim.