Ruwan Amaresh Shaun Ponniah

Timeline

•  5 Dec 2022 - Met up with Ruwan Shaun at Starbucks Paradigm Mall. He introduced to us his business opportunity where he can get Apple Products at 15% discount from retail price. From there we started a business arrangement where he would assist us to get iPhones at below retail prices for us to resell and make a small margin for each iPhone sold as he has a business relationship with Switch.

• 6 Dec 2022 - Transferred RM6,100 to his father's account with name Chandran Duraisamy Ponniah (Maybank Acc No: 014178122371) to order 1 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB

• 7 Dec 2022 - Collected the iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB at Switch Seremban without much issues.

• 8 Dec 2022 - Transferred RM5,346 to his father's account with name Chandran Duraisamy Ponniah (Maybank Acc No: 014178122371) to order 1 pc iPhone 14 Pro 256GB and 1 pc Apple Smart Keyboard that he said he will update once the stock arrives (ETA 2 weeks). [Personal order with larger discount]

• 9 Dec 2022 - Transferred RM6,100 to his father's account with name Chandran Duraisamy Ponniah (Maybank Acc No: 014178122371) to order 1 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB

• 10 Dec 2022 - Collected the iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB at Switch Bangsar Village without much issues.

• 10 Dec 2022 - Transferred RM17,600 to his father's account with name Chandran Duraisamy Ponniah (Maybank Acc No: 014178122371) to order 2 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB and 1 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 128GB

• 10 Dec 2022 - Collected the iPhone 14 Pro Max 128GB at Switch Bangsar Village, pending 2 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB

• 11 Dec 2022 - He stated that he managed to secure 4 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB. Transferred RM24,000 to his father's account with name Chandran Duraisamy Ponniah (Maybank Acc No: 014178122371) to lock the order.

• 12 Dec 2022 - Ruwan Shaun passed us 2pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB at our residence, pending 4pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB

• 13 Dec 2022 - Gave an explanation on not being able to fulfil the remaining 4pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB as below

• 13 Dec 2022 - Accepted his explaination and transferred RM6,000 to his father's account with name Chandran Duraisamy Ponniah (Maybank Acc No: 014178122371) to order another 1 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB. 

• 13 Dec 2022 - Transferred RM5,354.15 to his father's account with name Chandran Duraisamy Ponniah (Maybank Acc No: 014178122371) to order 1 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB [Personal order with larger discount]

• 16 Dec 2022 - He stated that he managed to secure 4 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB. Transferred RM24,000 to his father's account with name Chandran Duraisamy Ponniah (Maybank Acc No: 014178122371) to lock the order.

• 17 Dec 2022 - He stated that he managed to secure 4 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB. Transferred RM24,000 to his father's account with name Chandran Duraisamy Ponniah (Maybank Acc No: 014178122371) to lock the order.

• 24 Dec 2022 - Started giving excuses on not being able to fulfill the order for the 13 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB  and will proceed to arrange for a refund.  Personal orders for 1 pc iPhone 14 Pro Max 256GB, 1 pc iPhone 14 Pro 256GB and 1 pc Apple Smart Keyboard still pending. Amount transferred to Ruwan Shaun to date is RM88,700.15

• 29 Dec 2022 - Updated that the Apple Smart Keyboard is ready for collection, waiting for the other 2 iPhones under personal orders to arrive for collection one-shot.

• 30 Dec 2022 - Started to not reply in a delayed manner and giving excuses.

4 Jan 2023 - Updated that he will be collecting the refund cheques and that the personal order is ready to be collected. He will update on where to pick up the order. After this update, he stopped replying again.

5 Jan 2023 - Updated that he collected the cheques and will bank in shortly.

11 Jan 2023 - Updated that the money is in his account but floating. Will update once its ready to transfer.

14 Jan 2023 - Updated that the money is ready to be transferred and that he already told his dad to perform the transfer. He said he can't do it since it's his dad's bank account.

17 Jan 2023 - Updated that his dad hasn't went to the bank yet and gave the reason below:

"My dads standard chartered has no online banking, so he is supposed to go to the bank to transfer. Even to follow up whether it was in, we had to call everyday to check. 

As you know my dad is almost 80, and while he has said he will do it, and it’s my responsibility to get it back to you, I don’t want to push too much. I’ve forwarded him your message as a prompt and will tap him tomorrow as well."

20 Jan 2023 - Updated that his dad finally went to the bank, still yet to receive any money. Also updated that the keyboard is ready to be collected and that he will drop off to me over the weekend which did not happen.

26 Jan 2023 - Still no money received, he updated that the money wasn't deducted from his dad's account and he will try get his dad to try to transfer again the next day.

31 Jan 2023 - Tired of him not replying to my messages for the past few days, I sent the below threatening to report him to the police to which he replied as below. (He uses Switch freezing his payment vouchers as an excuse)

6 Feb 2023 - Updated that the money that came into his bank account was not the money refunded from Switch but instead was his dad's EPF reimbursement. Therefore he is still fighting for the refund from Switch which he mentioned had bounced. He then clarified that he does not work for Switch, but a related company.  When asking for direct contact to the "Related Company", he mentioned that he does not want to add fuel to the fire and will only pass to us if its not resolved soon.

11 Feb 2023 - He requested for a call on 14 Feb 2023 to update on the latest progress which did not happen.

17 Feb 2023 - Updated that his phone was stolen with the message below:

"Dear all, my phone has been stolen. Please do not message this number anymore, and please do not send any money if requested by this number, till I inform you.

I will message those that I need to, once I get a new handphone and number later today. Please note that while I have just gotten access to whatsapp web, once I report the phone as missing, my whatsapp will be locked. I've recorded down the contacts I need and will whatsapp once i get my new phone.

Thank you for the patience.

FYI, I have not had my phone since Wednesday 1am, so please let me know of any requests for money etc from then till now."

27 Feb 2023 - Updated that he is meeting his lawyer to discuss best options to deal with the "related company"'s bounced cheque.

28 Feb 2023 - He requested to use my credit card to sign a 36 month installment plan with Switch in which he will give me 1/3 of the total amount and repay the balance in 2 months  which I rejected.

5 March 2023 - He requested to borrow RM1,000 and return RM1,200 within a week which I agreed if we can meet up and that he will share with me the details of the court case with the "related company". He did not agree to share the details as it was confidential and involved Atome and therefore I rejected to lend the money.

1 Jun 2023 - Updated that his dad is on his death bed and he will get back to me the soonest possible.

23 Aug 2023 - Finally updated that he will start making payments once he gets his salary.

8 Sept 2023 - He requested for me to collect 6pc of cheques from a Mamak shop at Cova Square where each cheque is worth RM1,000. The cheques were postdated so I could only cash in RM1,000 each month. The first cheque coud only be banked in on 2 Oct 2023.

11 Oct 2023 - The first RM1,000 cheque bouched with reason account closed. He then said he will sort it out.

2 Nov 2023 - We posted our ordeal on Reddit to inform others on his scam.

29 Nov 2023 - He banked it RM250 to us, which he said was from his Lalamove job. (0.3% from the total amount of RM88,700 owed by him).  And he told us that he will transfer RM250 a week until our debt was fully settled which will take 355 weeks to fully settle (almost 7 years) which is truly absurd. We transfered RM88,700 to him over a span of 2 weeks for orders for Apple Products over a year ago and he needs almost 7 years to fully settle the debt. For these 7 years we are not allowed to publicize our ordeal as we needed to sign an agreement with him in exchange for the miniscule payment every week. We therefore decided to forgo the weekly payments from him in exchange to be able warn others to be careful with dealing with Ruwan Amaresh Shaun Ponniah.

Additional Threads

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