You are generally regarded as having committed an offence of cheating if you’ve fraudulently or dishonestly deceive someone to hand over property or money to you, or if you intentionally induce someone into either doing something that he would not do if he had not been deceived, or not doing something that he would have done if he had not been deceived, and the what the person has done or not done has caused or is likely to cause damage or harm to someone physically, reputationally or financially. on in body, mind, reputation or property

The penalty for cheating under section 415 of the Penal Code is a fine or imprisonment for up to 3 years or both.

For example, a cheating offence can take place when you sell fictitious goods online (e.g. Carousell) i.e. you lie to members of the public that you genuinely have goods to sell and you intentionally deceive them into buying the goods from you and paying you for them when you in fact don’t have any such goods to sell at all.

More serious categories of cheating by intentional or dishonest inducement of the delivery of property (under section 420 of the Penal Code) which occurs when the cheating involves dishonest inducement of the victim to hand over property and cheating by personation (under section 416 of the Penal Code) which occurs when you pretend to be some other person or when you lie about your identity to the victim.

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