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You have heard of dine and dash.

Have you heard of inked and dash?

That was what supposedly happened at a tattoo studio in Singapore recently.

Inkvasion, a tattoo studio in Far East Plaza, tipped Mothership off about a customer who allegedly did not pay up after getting tattooed.

The customer apparently excused himself to go to the washroom -- only to not go back to the shop to pay the S$500 he owed for work done.

What happened

According to a spokesperson for the shop, the man, Arjune, showed up for his appointment at Inkvasion in Orchard on Friday, June 30 to get a tattoo of a purple dagger on the back of his arm.

The customer, who looked to be in his 20s, at about 175cm, was charged S$600 for the tattoo.

The tattooing process took about seven hours from 2pm to 9pm.

One tattoo artist worked on it.

When the ink job was completed, Arjune, who has a slim build, claimed he had to go to the toilet and excused himself.

Did not come back

After leaving, he sent a message to the studio to say something urgent cropped up and he would have to leave first.

He then proposed making payment via a fund transfer later that day.

The message read: "Yo man I gotta rush. Something urgent cropped up. Do tell me how much today's appointment cost I will transfer it to you when I get home."

The response from the studio read: "Sure man, it'll be $500 for today."

And that was apparently the last the studio heard from the customer.

Prior to the appointment, Arjune, who also goes by the alias Dave, had already paid S$100 in advance to secure the slot for his tattoo job.

Blocked

The tattoo studio's spokesperson said: "When we texted him to get him to pay what he owed, he blocked us. This was for a full 2pm to 9pm of hard work that our artist didn’t get paid for."

"Police report has been made," the spokesperson added.

The studio said it knows the customer's full name and contact number as a result of having received Arjune's PayNow deposit.

The tattoo studio spokesperson also said the business wants to "spread awareness" by going public so that this does not happen to other tattoo artists or service providers.

"He also has other unfinished tattoos, so we are afraid this might not be the first time he did it," the spokesperson added.

The man apparently also has an outline of tiger tattoo on his left arm, as well as a coloured Kali design on his inner left arm.

The studio also put out a statement on their "Wanted" flyer about the customer, explaining: "Tattoo artists do not get a salary. They are paid a percentage from each session. By him just running off without paying, he not only wasted our money on supplies such as ink, gloves, needles, he robbed our tattoo artist of his time."

"Time that could've been better spent on other customers and money that he needs for his family and housing necessities."

How tattoo studios can protect themselves

Currently, tattoo studios practise collecting a non-refundable deposit from potential clients before any work is done just to secure a time slot for an appointment, the Inkvasion spokesperson said.

"Should the client fail to show up, cancel, change their mind or reschedule with less than 72 hours' notice, the deposit is forfeited," he added.

"And without a deposit that will mean zero income that day if the customer reserved a full day’s session, plus the artist may have already spent hours preparing and drawing up the design for nothing."

Asked about how tattoo studios can protect themselves from such customers, the spokesperson said: "We could probably start collecting payment up front like some restaurants like Aston’s, or those that require you to scan the QR and pay first before making the order."

"This would ensure there’s 100 per cent no dine and dash cases, haha."

All photos via Inkvasion