Appliance repairer or, at least claimed repairer, Clive Bramall, has pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud after taking hundreds of pounds for new washing machines he never delivered.
The BBC reports that Bramall, 57, from Abingdon, ran Oxford and Abingdon Washing Machine Repairs when he conned his victims. His antices were reported by the BBC’s Watchdog last year, the report is on the Watchdog site.
At Oxford Magistrates’ Court, Bramall was given a six-week sentence that was suspended for a year.
He was also ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work and warned that he could have been jailed.
Bramall also pleaded guilty to six counts of misleading customers by taking payment without supplying goods and one count of failing to act with professional diligence by not supplying goods and not giving a refund.
Oxfordshire County Council’s Trading Standards investigators said he had inspected broken machines, claimed they needed replacing and offered to deliver new ones if the money was paid upfront.
In nine cases that were taken to trial, the machines never materialised and the victims were left out of pocket, a spokesman said.
Anu Prashar, the prosecutor for Oxfordshire County Council’s Trading Standards Service, said: “Mr Bramall took the money off his victims and gave them a verbal agreement that the washing machines or dryers would be delivered.
“He carried on in this way for over a year, which is why he was convicted for fraud for the later cases, as by then he knew he had no intention to supply the new machines to his customers.”
We’re quite pleased about this news, it shows that the bad guys can and do get caught.