A Facebook fraudster scammed a woman out of £700 for work he never carried out and conned another customer whose bank card he stole from her home.
George Lindsay used Facebook Marketplace and other community pages on the social network to secure handyman jobs in Moray, fleecing customers out of their cash.
One woman, who was ripped off, was quoted £1,400 to repair her fence and the dodgy dealer took a £700 deposit but then failed to turn up to do the work.
On another occasion, the 47-year-old finished only half of the work that he agreed to do for a different woman – then disappeared with her debit card.
But Lindsay landed in the dock after the father-of-two, who also stole a car and mobile phone, finally had his crimes catch up with him, Elgin Sheriff Court was told.
‘He never turned up to carry out the work’
Fiscal depute Naomi Duffy-Welsh told the court that Lindsay first offended on January 15 2020.
A dog breeder had posted on the Moray Trusted Tradesmen Facebook page that she urgently needed fencing repaired at her home in Elgin.
Lindsay replied – using a profile going by the name of “Dod Williamson” – and said he could visit and give a quote for the job that day.
“He attended, quoted £1,400 to replace the fence, took measurements and told her that he would start work the next day,” the fiscal said.
“Later that evening he sent a Facebook message to the woman asking her to pay £700 upfront for materials and she paid that to a Bank of Scotland account that night.
“He then never turned up to carry out the work.”
The woman spent three days trying to cancel the work and get her money back but Lindsay fobbed her off with excuses, before ignoring her altogether.
“She thereafter reported the fraud to her bank but was unable to get the money back as the bank informed her the account she had paid into had been closed and all the funds withdrawn,” the fiscal explained.
Stole woman’s bank card
Just two weeks later, on January 29 2020, Lindsay turned up at another woman’s home to carry out work after she contacted him over Facebook.
She had left her debit card on the sofa and when she returned home the next day, she found the area disturbed.
The fiscal added “she didn’t think anything of it at the time” but the next day she noted two transactions, totalling £60, had been made at WHSmith in Elgin.
She said the woman then cancelled her card after she realised Lindsay had taken it and that he didn’t return to complete the work.
The court was also told of an occasion on March 2 of the same year, when Lindsay went to buy a car at an address in Elgin.
He produced a £200 cash envelope before signing the V5C registration certificate.
Lindsay then brazenly drove off in the car, while disqualified from driving, before the seller even realised that he hadn’t actually handed over the cash.
Just five days later, Lindsay also stole a mobile phone from the Three UK store in Elgin, after discussing a new handset with store staff.
The mobile was noticed as missing during a stock check and the police were then contacted.
Drug abuse was ‘driving force’
Lindsay admitted two charges of fraud, theft of a car, driving while disqualified, and stealing a mobile phone.
His defence solicitor Mhyrin Hill told the court that substance misuse “appears to be the driving force for his offending”.
She also said that her client had recently lost both his father and brother and that he “appears before the court today as an entirely different person to that which committed these offences in 2020”.
Ms Hill went on to say that he was now free of drugs and had moved away to a quieter part of the country.
“There has been a de-escalation of his offending and he has really begun to enact positive change,” the defence agent added.
Sheriff Eric Brown handed Lindsay, of Findlater Place in Banff, Aberdeenshire, a two-year community payback order.
He was required to carry out 135 hours of unpaid work and regularly be tested for drug abuse.
The sheriff also banned Lindsay from the roads for one year.
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