Argos employee at Wakefield store swindled £13,000 with simple returns scam
An employee at Argos pocketed more than £13,000 from the company with a returns scam in which she diverted cash towards her own account.
Trainee nurse Malikah Farooq avoided jail after admitting a charge of fraud by false representation during a hearing at Leeds Crown Court.
The 21-year-old was caught out when the store manager at the Trinity Walk store in Wakefield was totting up returns in June last year.
Prosecutor Katy Welford said the manager thought it “did not look correct”.
A deeper investigation found more than £14,000 worth of goods had been refunded and the money had gone into bank accounts run by Farooq.
CCTV footage also backed up the allegations. She was sacked from the job but continued to deny wrongdoing.
It was found that she had “returned” items that were old or not sold, or returned items for more than they were worth. The total amount she admitted to taking came to £13,179.
Another £1,977 worth of items were disputed, but the Crown opted not to pursue the outstanding cash.
Farooq was arrested from her home on Pinderfields Road in Wakefield. She gave no-comment answers to most questions during her police interview.
She has no previous convictions and a probation report determined that she was “bright” and had shown “genuine remorse”.
She has since enrolled on a three-year paediatric nursing course at Sheffield Hallam University and is due to enter her final year.
Mitigating, Amber Walker said Farooq was “profoundly sorry for her actions” and predicted she would never appear in court again.
Judge Howard Crowson said: “It was not particularly sophisticated. You took advantage of a trusted role and you repeated the fraud over time.”
He gave her an 18-month community order and 150 hours of unpaid work.