A conwoman who scammed holiday-makers out of almost £40,000 by selling fake holidays on eBay has been jailed for 16 months.
Julie Flood, 45, raked in the cash after ripping off 19 sun-seekers who forked out for bogus holidays to Spain, France and South America.
Grasping swindler Flood set up a sham travel company on the auction website and embarked on a five-month fraud spree – fleecing holidaymakers for between £50 and almost £4,500 a time.
Her victims came from as far afield as Blackpool, Cornwall, Wales and Gibrtaltar. One was the wife of a senior Army officer serving in Germany - who was planning a dream trip to New York.
One unlucky would-be traveller was stung three times by Flood – who pocketed more than £9,000 from him alone.
The crooked mum-of-one, of Maidstone, had admitted 27 counts of theft at an earlier hearing.
Prosecutor Philip St John-Stevens had told the court: "She was running a site on eBay selling holidays ... these holidays were never to materialise."
The court heard Flood was offering dream trips at massive discounts -which should have given her away to customers.
Her New York vacation package included two Virgin return flights, four nights at the pretigious Waldorf Astoria hotel, a helicopter ride and tickets to a top Broadway show. The trip was on sale for less than £1,000 but the flights alone would have been £600.
Her Florida trip included tickets to the Disneyland fun park, apartment rental and flights.
She also offered a two-week break in the Caribbean paradise of
Antigua - and offered use of what she said was her own villa in the sunshine hideaway of Marbella, Spain.
Incredibly the scam took place just months after Flood was spared jail for another eBay con.
In June, 2006, she was handed 80 hours community service after she admitted selling hundreds of fake Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton handbags.
Her lenghty list of previous included more than 100 counts of stealing from her employer in 1990 and obtaining money by deception in a fake bank accounts scam a decade later.
The court was told just £2,000 of the money scammed by Flood's holiday con has since been recovered.
Sentencing Flood at Maidstone Crown Court, Judge Mr Recorder Blackford told her: "It seems to me at the time it started it was not a scam but by March, 2005, it had become, in effect, a swindle by substantial scale.
The judge added Flood had behaved in a "substantially misleading" way to towards her customers.
"You had lost them a substantial amount of money and lost their holidays."
“I regard the offence as so serious that a community punishment or financial penalty will not suffice.
“You must go to prison for 16 months. You will serve at least half your sentence before being released on licence.”
A hearing to confiscate Flood’s assets to raise funds to compensate her victims will be held later this year.
Care arrangements have been made for Flood's 12-year-old daughter after the mum was warned she faced jail at an earlier hearing.
POSTED: 02/08/2007 12:13:24
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