Far East Plaza shop looking for man who bailed on $500 bill after getting tattoo that took 7 hours

A tattoo shop at Far East Plaza is looking for a man who walked out on his $500 bill after getting a tattoo that staff had spent seven hours on.

Stomper Catt, who owns Inkvasion Tattoo Studio with her husband, said the man came in for a tattoo last Friday (June 30), at around 2pm.

The man, who looked to be in his 20s and was around 1.75m to 1.8m tall, wanted an "intricate" design of a Tibetan phurba dagger on the back of his arm.

Catt said: "Our artist worked on the design and tattooed Arjune tirelessly for seven hours until 9pm. Arjune then said he wanted to go to the toilet. He never returned."

A WhatsApp screenshot shows Arjune saying that he had to rush off as "something urgent cropped up" and that he would transfer payment once he reached home.

However, the money never came through.

Instead, Arjune blocked the studio on WhatsApp.

Catt explained: "Initially, we could still see his profile picture. But after asking for payment, we realised we had gotten blocked."

Catt said that the artist who did Arjune's tattoo is an orphan who has been robbed of not just hours of hard work, but also a full day's earnings as he could have been serving other paying customers.

She added: "Arjune also has other unfinished tattoos such as the outline of a tiger of his left arm and a coloured kali on his inner left arm, so we are afraid this might not be the first time he has done something like this.

"A police report has been made but I hope Stomp can help to spread awareness so this does not happen to other service providers."

In response to a Stomp query, the police confirm that a report was lodged.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the phurba is a ritual dagger designed to "symbolically consume the triple poisons of ignorance, greed, and delusion that impede spiritual progress". More simply put, it is used to protect against negative energies and to promote positive change.

Hmmm, this does not seem to apply to the bill evader.