Australian schoolboys $2 million EBAY fraud., by Sacked... on Mar 1, 2011 13:02:32 GMT 1, Bank error reveals student's eBay fraud.
--------------------------------------------------


A Brisbane schoolboy's elaborate frauds were only discovered when $2 million accidentally lobbed into one of his fake bank accounts, a court has been told.

Philip Heggie, 19, pleaded guilty to more than 100 charges in the Brisbane District Court on Tuesday.

From December 2008 to December 2009, the then Year 12 student at St Laurence's College used 119 Suncorp bank accounts in different names to defraud users of the auction website eBay.

Crown prosecutor Patrina Clohessy said 99 customers had paid Heggie for mobile phones and electronics they never received.

Third-party company PayPal was defrauded of $39,104 due to his deceit, she said.

But the IT student's complex web of fake accounts unravelled when, through a mixture of human and computer error, $2 million landed into one of the accounts in December 2009.

When Heggie tried to withdraw $5000 of the windfall - the maximum allowed withdrawal in one day - a teller became suspicious and called police.

A police search netted fake IDs and the signature block of a justice of the peace used to forge documents, among other items.

Besides charges of fraud and attempted fraud relating to the eBay scam and attempts to access the $2 million, the court heard more than 90 charges of breaching bail.

One of Heggie's bail conditions was that he didn't access the internet, but he went online 91 times and even opened a false bank account and PayPal account in February 2010.

Ms Clohessy described his offending as "persistent, systematic and reasonably sophisticated".

Defence lawyer Ruth O'Gorman said Heggie had been bullied as a child and continued to be bullied during the 356 days he had spent in custody.

He had started trading legitimately on eBay but began opening fake accounts when he racked up debts, and his real account was frozen.

In relation to the $2 million that appeared in one of them, Ms O'Gorman reminded the court her client was only a "young boy" who figured "all of his Christmases had come at once".

Heggie had been suffering a depressive illness at the time of the eBay swindle, and was self-medicating with drugs he had bought online, she said.

Judge Kerry O'Brien said the elaborate eBay scam was the most concerning offence.

But Heggie had also been accepted to study business at university and had the offer of part-time work.

"Yours is not only an unusual case but a difficult one, because this sort of offending must be regarded seriously," he said.

"On the other hand, you're still a very young man and you do have prospects for rehabilitation."

Heggie was sentenced to three years' jail but will be eligible for parole next Friday.

au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/-/latest/8931595/bank-error-reveals-students-eBay-fraud/