A painting and decorating centre boss embezzled £207,000 in the space of just six months by carrying out fake refunds at the Aberdeen store.
Ryan Young, who was operations manager at Johnston’s Decorating Centre in the harbour area, transferred the money straight from the tills onto his own bank cards.
The sums of cash involved were so great that at one point he had to repay more than £30,000 so that the business wouldn’t miss its sales targets.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told the 35-year-old used his colleagues’ user IDs to log the refunds while his workmates were either furloughed, on holiday or out on deliveries.
Dozens of dodgy refunds were put through the tills before they came to the attention of the firm’s parent company’s commercial risk team.
High-value amounts flagged up
Fiscal depute Carol Gammie said Young embezzled the money from the Miller Street store between March 19 and November 6, 2020.
She said the centre’s parent company, PPG Industries, first spotted that the suspicious transactions in December 2020.
Analysis of the shop’s sales system found multiple unverified refunds where there was no original sales transaction.
Young would turn the system off before the refund was finalised, meaning it was voided and no data regarding stock and sales made it into the accounting system.
“In essence, monetary refunds were being carried out to bank cards however due to the till being turned off during the process, there were no corresponding sales transactions being logged,” the fiscal added.
“PPG identified 45 similar transactions throughout 2020 and 36 of these were found to be fraudulent due to being of high value and not matching corresponding sales.”
Used workmates’ IDs
Those 36 refunds were placed onto 10 different bank cards – all in Young’s name.
Investigations revealed that Young used his colleague’s user IDs to carry out the transactions, resetting their passwords when they were either furloughed, on holiday, out on deliveries, or working alone.
“The timings of each fraudulent transaction can be matched to when the user IDs were changed and by confirming the whereabouts of each staff member,” Ms Gammie said.
At one point during his campaign of fraud Young even had to pay back £31,000 to ensure the store met its targets.
Sentence deferred
The fiscal added: “The false refund transactions totalled £238,000 but accounts also revealed he made payments to the company totalling £31,000.
“These were seemingly to ensure that the store met various targets throughout the period of the libel.
“The total sum embezzled by the accused is £207,000.”
Young, of Virginia Street, Aberdeen, admitted a charge of embezzlement.
PPG Industries – one of the world’s largest suppliers of paints, coatings, optical products, speciality materials and glass – declined to comment on Young’s case.
Sheriff Ian Wallace deferred sentencing until next month while background reports are prepared.
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