A man who stole more than £700k from Boots using a gift card loophole has now been jailed.
Robert Bell, 37, exploited a little-known loophole in the gift cards, getting them for free by filling out an order form and then requesting they be loaded with credit.
However, the fraudster had no intention of paying back the cash and his antics raked in a massive £736,000 before he was jailed for two years and nine months.
At the time, Bell was heading up a wholesalers called Bells of Bishopbriggs.
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During his trial, Glasgow Sheriff Court heard that a postman noticed a suspicious number of ‘special deliveries’ arriving at his firm, located in a large hut at a business park in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire.
Bell had been carrying out the scam for three months before the deciding moment came in November 2017, when he was finally arrested after trying to get his hands on another £150,000 worth of gift cards.
In her closing statement, prosecutor Hannah Terrance told jurors: “Bell had no intention for paying for any of this credit.
“He exploited a loophole and made false pretences as part of the fraudulent scam. His postman described his business premises as a hut.
“All he could tell was that Bell was there receiving regular special deliveries.”
Bell managed to get his hands on gift cards worth up to £7,500, and ended up spending more than half a million quid of the gift cards across 30,000 transactions.
Boots have been unable to cancel the rest of the cards due to their unique serial numbers. They’ve also lost out on all that cash having not received a penny back from the scammer.
After being arrested, Bell told the police he had applied for the cards in order to give them as a gift to his staff, as well as providing a ‘customer incentive’.
Bell’s defence lawyer, David Adams, told jurors that the fraudster was unaware of the system error at Boots.
He said: “This was not a crime. Boots allowed him to do this due to an error on their part.
“His business had cash flow problems, his customers were not paying him and he could not pay the suppliers - one of which was Boots.”
Bell is currently serving a 33-month sentence after being convicted of involvement in a fraudulent scheme between September and November 2017.
Abbi Murray