Woman is guilty of £35,000 eBay fraud

A somewhat bizarre example

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/lowestoft_woman_is_guilty_of_35_000_ebay_fraud_1_4287383

28 October 2015

Ipswich Crown Court heard that in addition to the goods she received 28-year-old Yaseen Usman also attempted to purchase items worth a further £103,000 which were not delivered after fraudulent activity was suspected.

Usman, who was living in Carlton Road, Lowestoft, denied fraud between June 30 and July 15, 2013 by falsely representing she was authorised to use a PayPal account set up in the name of Shahbaz Mussadiq.

The court heard that at one stage Usman had so many parcels they took up a third of the lounge.

The items included a washing machine, a garden grass trimmer, an air conditioning unit and a laptop computer which Usman and her husband told a lodger were gifts for a relative’s wedding.

The court heard that on July 10, 2013, five days before the fraud came to an end, Usman’s husband contacted their landlord to say they were leaving for Pakistan.

Two days earlier a container lorry arrived at the house and all the parcels and the couple’s possessions were loaded into it and the couple’s lodger told police they left for Pakistan on July 11.

Usman was arrested at Heathrow in February, and blamed her husband for the eBay purchases. She denied any knowledge of a PayPal account set up in the name of Shahbaz Mussadiq, her husband’s cousin.

Andrew Shaw, prosecuting, said: “The two eBay accounts that were used to make these fraudulent purchases were both in the defendant’s name and both on the face of it had her details such as her date of birth, mobile phone number and email address.”

This may have sounded like a well thought out fraud, but actually it was always going to end badly.