California Fitness coach jailed over HKD1.4mil credit card fraud

A coach for California Fitness was jailed for three years and four months after the court heard how he secretly used his clients’ credit cards to sign up for fitness programmes worth over HKD1.4 mil, SCMP reports.

The coach, Nick Mak, had apparently used this tactic to meet his sales targets, which landed one of his four victims with a HKD390,000 card bill that remained outstanding even after she was declared bankrupt. After his arrest, Mak confessed to charging HKD390,000 to one of his clients, despite knowing she couldn’t cough up the cash.

The District Court heard how Mak had asked the four clients to buy California Fitness packages to help him meet his sales targets and promised they could be refunded if they were dissatisfied, despite knowing full well that the company has no such refund policy.

He reportedly used the cards over 60 times, and by doing so earned commissions of over HKD140,000.

Mak pleaded guilty to 19 counts of fraud, for misleading his clients into thinking they would get full refunds if they were dissatisfied with the training provided, and for using their personal credit information to pay for programmes under other names.

Judge Josiah Lam said that Mak had “breached the trust the employer had in him”. You don’t say.

The four clients suffered monetary losses between HKD150,000 and HKD400,000 between 2012 and 2013, the court heard.

Photo: Wikipedia
 


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