KEY POINTS:
Two fraudsters who caused losses of $50,169 with their online activities have been jailed after admitting almost 50 charges each.
Christchurch District Court Judge Gary MacAskill made a reparation order, but declined to give Mark Andrew Wright, an unemployed 36-year-old, any credit for his undertaking to use security in his house to pay back the money.
He offered Wright a further adjournment to settle details about the house, but Wright wanted the sentencing to go ahead yesterday.
Judge MacAskill cited other cases.
"Experience suggests a high degree of scepticism should be applied to undertakings to pay reparation," he said.
Wright and his partner, Anna Jean Steedman, a 31-year-old mother, had both pleaded guilty to 44 charges of dishonestly using documents as well as other theft and drug charges.
They had used various methods to bill goods and services to other people's credit card accounts and had the goods delivered to fictitious addresses, or motels, or they bought air travel online.
Police have asked that the method they used to generate the credit card numbers, and to check on a website that they had a valid credit card number and expiry date combination, not be published.
The method meant legitimate card holders still had physical possession of their cards and were unaware of the unauthorised use of their details until their credit-card statement arrived.
Defence counsel Raoul Neave said he had been trying to get authorisation for legal aid for the conveyancing on Wright's house, but this had only just been granted. He believed there was at least $50,000 equity in the house.
For Steedman, Tom Stevens said the method used for online purchases - where the last three digits from the back of the credit card were not required - pointed to many retailers being "behind the times".
He jailed them both for three years and eight months and added another six months to Wright's sentence for importing a class C drug. He asked to review the reparation situation in 28 days.
- NZPA
