A painting and decorating centre boss who embezzled £207,000 through a fake refunds scam has been jailed for more than two years.
Ryan Young, who was operations manager at Johnston’s Decorating Centre in the harbour area, appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court to be sentenced after admitting transferring the money straight from the tills onto his own bank cards over a six month period.
Young, 35, used his colleagues’ user IDs to log the refunds while his workmates were either furloughed, on holiday or out on deliveries.
Dozens of dodgy refunds were put through the tills before they came to the attention of the firm’s parent company’s commercial risk team.
His solicitor told the court: “It just got completely out of hand.”
36 refunds were placed onto 10 different bank cards
Fiscal depute Carol Gammie said Young embezzled the money from the Miller Street store between March 19 and November 6, 2020.
She said the centre’s parent company, PPG Industries, first spotted the suspicious transactions in December 2020.
Analysis of the shop’s sales system found multiple unverified refunds where there was no original sales transaction.
Young would turn the system off before the refund was finalised, meaning it was voided and no data regarding stock and sales made it into the accounting system.
“In essence, monetary refunds were being carried out to bank cards however due to the till being turned off during the process, there were no corresponding sales transactions being logged,” the fiscal added.
“PPG identified 45 similar transactions throughout 2020 and 36 of these were found to be fraudulent due to being of high value and not matching corresponding sales.”
Those 36 refunds were placed onto 10 different bank cards – all in Young’s name.
Investigations revealed that Young used his colleague’s user IDs to carry out the transactions, resetting their passwords when they were either furloughed, on holiday, out on deliveries, or working alone.
“The timings of each fraudulent transaction can be matched to when the user IDs were changed and by confirming the whereabouts of each staff member,” Ms Gammie said.
At one point during his campaign of fraud Young even had to pay back £31,000 to ensure the store met its targets.
The fiscal added: “The false refund transactions totalled £238,000 but accounts also revealed he made payments to the company totalling £31,000.
“These were seemingly to ensure that the store met various targets throughout the period of the libel.
“The total sum embezzled by the accused is £207,000.”
Young, of Virginia Street, Aberdeen, admitted a charge of embezzlement.
‘A significant breach of trust’
Defence agent Christopher Maitland confirmed for the court that Young had been made redundant by Johnston’s Decorating Centre as a result of the scam and had a “feeling of inevitability” about the outcome of his sentence.
“He realised what he could do with the refunds and that it wouldn’t be detected in the daily figures,” Mr Maitland said.
“Essentially, what was happening is that money was being transferred from the bank account of the company into his personal bank account – at times those transfers were as high as £10,000.
“It’s pretty obvious someone was going to realise the scam.
“He describes it as self-destructive and he knew that eventually this was going to be discovered – it just got completely out of hand.”
Mr Maitland added that none of the £207,000 sum has been paid back and is currently subject to a civil court case between his client and Johnston’s Decorating Centre.
Sheriff Ian Wallace told Young: “You have accepted that the only appropriate disposal in this case is a custodial sentence.
“It is a very high value embezzlement and none of the money was paid back.
“It’s a significant breach of trust and as such that has to bring about a significant punishment.”
Sheriff Wallace sentenced Young, of Virginia Street, Aberdeen, to 26 months in prison.
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