Kota Kinabalu: A 23-year-old unemployed man was sentenced to three years' imprisonment by the Sessions Court after pleading guilty to using his female friend's ATM card without her knowledge to pay RM200 for a hotel check-in.
Sessions Court Judge Monica Linsua sentenced Mohammad Harith Ihsan, who admitted to carrying out the RM200 transaction using the 34-year-old complainant's payment instrument without lawful authority at 5.41pm on Feb 25 this year in Kota Kinabalu, and ordered the jail term to run from the date of his arrest.
The offence, under Section 424C(2) of the Penal Code, carries a penalty of between three and 10 years' imprisonment, a fine of between RM10,000 and RM150,000, or both, upon conviction.
In mitigation, Mohammad, who was unrepresented, appealed for leniency, while Deputy Public Prosecutor Fazriel Fardiansyah Abdul Kadir urged the court to impose a deterrent sentence, submitting that the accused had deliberately and dishonestly misused the complainant's ATM card without her knowledge or consent, undermining public confidence in electronic banking and cashless payment systems.
The court heard that the complainant discovered the unauthorised transaction after receiving an SMS alert from Alliance Bank regarding the RM200 deduction for a hotel room, later suspecting Mohammad after leaving her wallet containing the ATM card in a car she had sent to him for bodykit installation, prompting a police report and subsequent investigations that led to the charge.
