Former NI call centre worker jailed for defrauding Vodafone

A former call centre worker who cost Vodafone nearly £29,000 in new phones and iPads has been jailed for a year for fraud.

Belfast Crown Court Judge Gordon Kerr told David Parry (25) he was a repeat offender, whose motivation in defrauding his employers was solely for profit. As a result, he was regarded as a high risk of reoffending.

Parry, whose address was given as Maghaberry prison, will serve an additional year under supervised licensed parole.

In all he pleaded guilty to 17 charges of fraud by abuse of position.

Earlier prosecutor Stephen McCourt said it had been Parry’s job to try and convince customers to stay with Vodafone with promises of an upgrade or additional devices, such as ipads.

However, he was not always successful, and was meant to close down the accounts of any customers who insisted on leaving Vodafone. Mr McCourt said that a few days later, Parry would go back into the closed accounts, mainly from customers in England, and order new replacement phones or iPads, but direct them to an address in Belfast.

Between June and September 2013, he logged on to 17 accounts, and ordered some 21 mobiles phones and 39 iPads at a total cost of £28,924.49 to Vodafone. Parry later claimed to have been paid between £80 to a £100 for the devices.

A defence lawyer said Parry was re-routing customer orders at a time when he was having problems with alcohol and gambling. However, the lawyer also accepted that his client had a poor history in defrauding employers.

He added that Parry considered himself “an idiot” as there was a certain amount of inevitability of him being caught out in his unsophisticated offending.