A FRAUDSTER used Groupon and Wowcher to swindle £60,000 for vehicle repairs, which had never been finished.
Fahad Javaid installation Express Smart Repairs and advertised on the cut-price websites.
He offered offerings for scratch and dent maintenance and said a mechanic could turn up at customers’ addresses.
But those paying needed to stump up the coins up front, only to discover no mechanic arrived, and their pleas for a refund fell on deaf ears.
The 31-year-antique installation the agency no matter previous convictions for fraud in 2013, where he was presupposed to be difficult to a Serious Crime Prevention Order.
He was handiest scuppered whilst he tried to shop for a BMW on finance, in which repayments have been now not met.
There had been 39 victims of his fraud throughout the u. S ., Lewes Crown Court heard.
Javaid pleaded responsible for fraud, money laundering, and theft, in addition to breaching the prevention order.
He turned into sentenced to four years and four months in jail this month.
The court docket turned into told that detectives noticed Javaid was strolling organizations in 2016, regardless of a ten-yr ban underneath the prevention order.
He had previously served and a 1/2 12 months prison sentence from a case heard at Hove Crown Court in April 2013.
That was when he pleaded responsible for fraudulent buying and selling, carrying on an ancillary credit enterprise without a consumer credit score license, ten counts of fraud, and one matter of perverting the path of justice.
Following the case in advance this month, Detective Constable Karen Young said: “This was complicated research covering Javaid’s offending from 2015 through to 2019.
“He installation an employer ‘Express Smart Repairs’ that advertised on internet site Groupon and Wowcher to carry out scratch and dent maintenance to cars that might be completed at clients’ home addresses.
“Payment became required up the front to comfy a cellular mechanic; however, no mechanic ever arrived, and no refunds were ever obtained.
“The fraud commenced to come to police be aware when in February 2016 Javaid who had obtained, thru a third birthday party, get admission to to a BMW bought on finance, wherein payments have been no longer meeting, was stopped by using officials while riding the car, and the car was repossessed via the finance organization.
Javaid of Foxhill, Peacehaven, will need to serve half of his prison sentence before being launched on the license.
DC Young introduced: “To help carry out this fraud, to which 39 people from all around the UK fell sufferer, Javaid leased property in Lewes Road, Brighton, from in which the frauds have been instigated.
