A serial fraudster who was living the high life on an 84-year-old man’s savings has been jailed after she pretended to be in love with him while trying to con him out of £81,000.
Cheryl Joss, also known as Mitchell, used her ill-gotten gains to buy designer clothes, holidays and expensive gifts for herself while scamming the pensioner out of more than £30,000.
The 41-year-old grifter also used his name to try and gain more than £50,000 in finance, Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard.
Joss – who has countless previous convictions for fraud against the elderly – met the octogenarian through the Match.com dating website and convinced him they were in a relationship.
However, the court heard Joss continued to date another man through the period of the scam.
As the fake relationship continued between October 14 2021 and February 11 last year, Joss got the pensioner to transfer £27,733 by claiming her sister was sick.
During this period she also got the man to hand over an additional £1,346 in Euros for a holiday trip.
Scam involved holiday trips
Fiscal depute Lynne MacVicar told the court that Joss managed to claw £28,387 from the elderly man between October 2021 and March 2022.
The victim, a now-86-year-old man who lived alone after his wife died, joined the dating website Match.com in October 2021.
On October 14, the accused contacted the lonely man – calling herself ‘April Joss’.
At first, she was knocked back by the pensioner, who explained that he was too old for her.
But she told him that “she preferred the company of older men”.
Her dating profile described the offender as single and employed by a helicopter company.
The pair first met at the victim’s home on October 17, when the accused gave her victim her phone number, and they met the very next day.
That’s when she asked him if he wanted to go on holiday with her, suggesting Tenerife as the destination for February 2022.
The elderly gentleman agreed and then transferred £2,870 into one of the romance fraudster’s bank accounts “with the understanding that the sum was to cover the complainer’s half of the holiday costs”.
Joss then asked her victim, on October 19 2021, to pay her £1,502 towards the holiday.
Again, he transferred the cash and on the same date the pair visited a Bureau de Change to buy Euros.
The man purchased £1,304 of Euros “and the accused took same from him and expressed that she would keep the currency safe,” the court heard. “This currency was never returned to the complainer’s control”.
On 22 October, believing they were in a romantic relationship, the gentleman transferred £7,000 to the scammer.
“The complainer understood that this sum would be repaid,” the court heard.
Victim ‘willingly transferred’ money
Joss went on to convince the man to give her another £1,300, on October 27, to pay for his half of “another holiday to Benidorm”.
He made another bank transfer of £1,100 on November 19, this time “under the pretence that this was for payment towards the holiday to Tenerife” – as requested by the accused.
Then she started asking the OAP for money, which he “willingly” transferred, to pay for her personal purchases, including “a new sofa or a new television or to alleviate her bank balance being in overdraft”.
Around 22 December 2021, Joss told her victim that she was going to London to care for her sick sister.
But she was actually on holiday in Tenerife with her fiancé for three weeks, according to the accused’s bank statements, which detailed various cash machine transactions.
During that period, she successfully fleeced the pensioner out of £1,350, after begging him for financial help to cover the costs of staying in London to look after her loved one and to pay for a flight to Glasgow.
He also transferred a further £400 on July 8 last year when she asked him to.
Joss asked the vulnerable man, who had “no knowledge” that his fake girlfriend was engaged to someone else, whether he wanted to move in with her at her place in Kintore.
The court heard he was “eager as he enjoyed the accused’s company”.
She suggested she might have a friend interested in buying his home
During this period, the accused was also receiving money from her fiancé and was regularly making large purchases on clothing websites, some designer clothing websites and on various other retail sites.
Purchases were also made on websites for wedding outfits.
Tried to get thousands in car finance
On January 12 2022, the accused’s account had insufficient funds and upon receiving a payment from the OAP, she sent £100 to a payee bearing the name of her fiancé, with the reference ‘happy birthday xx’.
Joss contacted the Kintore car dealership C&M McDonald by phone on February 2022.
She told them she wanted to buy a BMW 4 Series, advertised for £21,995, and said that she would pay the deposit on the day.
Unknown to her unsuspecting victim, she put a total of £1,030 on the pensioner’s bank card without his permission.
He wasn’t even aware she was interested in buying the car, the court heard.
When she attended the dealership to organise the private number plate of “GC64 MCD”, she told dealership staff that the vehicle was for her “partner” – a man called Graham.
Later that day, she telephoned the dealership and changed her order to a four-wheel-drive Audi.
Joss “had access to various identification and personal documents” belonging to her victim.
The court heard that he “did not consent” to her attempting to take out personal and vehicle loans in his name.
Luckily, both Marks and Spencer Financial Services and BMW Financial Services refused the applications over fraud concerns.
‘She is unable to say why she does these things’
Defence advocate John McLeod said his client “entirely accepts responsibility for her offending”.
“Ms Joss only committed her first offence at the age of 24, which is a comparatively late start in life,” he said.
“She has been in custody for 17 months in relation to this matter and it was a very late change of plea to guilty a day or so before the trial was due to begin – I told her the ramifications of that which she accepts.
“There’s an element of truth that when she was successful in asking for money from the complainer and got it the first time she then asked for more money.
“There was a significant degree of planning and the social work report states she has a poor attitude to her offending behaviour.
“She is unable to say why she does these things.”
Sheriff Morag McLaughlin told Joss: “You know what you have done pled guilty to defrauding this elderly gentleman and attempting to obtain other benefits by fraud.
“This was done shortly after you were released from custody and you were still on licence in the community.
“You accept the inevitability of a custodial sentence.
“In view of your record and the fact that you were on licence, no other disposal is available other than a custodial one.”
Sheriff McLaughlin sentenced Joss to 52 months in prison, backdated to March 10 last year.
She also put a non-harassment order in place meaning she cannot approach the victim in this case for five years.
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