Conman in £10k eBay swindle is spared jail

A COMPUTER student conned American buyers out of thousands of pounds by placing bogus adverts on eBay in a bid to pay off university debts.

Imran Akram, 27, pocketed 10,500 after advertising expensive electrical equipment on the internet auction site.

He took money from buyers in California and Ohio after advertising 1000 laptop computers and Playstation games that he pretended to have.

But he was tracked down after 42 complaints were made by customers who never received the goods.

Akram, of Mortonhall Park Loan in Edinburgh, ran the scam after opening up an account with PayPal in October, 2003.

Min Joo, Arnel Cauguiran and Christopher Lincoln, all from Calfornia and Stephanie Taylor, from Ohio responded to the fake adverts, along with many others, and paid for the electrical goods through Akram's PayPal account.

"He received payments for a number of items he was allegedly selling on eBay," Fiscal Depute Gillian More told Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

"Over the next few months 42 complaints were made to PayPal about non delivery. The loss fell to PayPal, which reimbursed the customers."

The eBay account company tried to contact Akram, but he failed to respond.

He was reported to the FBI in the USA and to the Scottish police. Investigations showed he had received 10,500 by fraud.

On 10 November, 2005, he was interviewed by Lothian and Borders Police and admitted setting up the scam.

He confessed to conning the overseas buyers out of the money, which he used to pay off a university debt. He said that once that was done he ended the fraud.

He immediately told defence agent Ewen Roy that he wanted to plead guilty and witnesses from the USA did not have to come to Scotland for trial.

Mr Roy said Akram, a first offender, had now remortgaged his house and repaid the sum in full after writing a cheque to the eBay account company which had reimbursed the purchasers.

He said the former Heriot Watt computer science student had left his degree to work for his father whose business was failing.

His father had since suffered a stroke and Akram and his wife now supported both his parents, the lawyer said.

The full-time company administrator escaped jail today when Sheriff Elizabeth Jarvie, QC, instead ordered him to carry out 225 hours of community service.

"This was a serious offence but you are a first offender, you made full repayment, you immediately admitted the crime and have not come to the attention of the police since. For these reasons I am prepared to deal with this by way of a community based order," she said.