Cheshire travel agent admits fraud
A travel agent is due to be sentenced tomorrow after admitting fraud by abuse of position.
Rebecca Waterfall worked for Incentivise, an agency based in Lymm, Cheshire, between October 2015 and May last year.
She admitted that during that time she fraudulently used her employer’s credit card to pay for holidays.
In total she spent more than £10,000 and left one family, who were family friends, more than £5,000 out of pocket.
Waterfall was due for sentencing on Friday but Judge Patrick Field QC at Manchester Crown Court adjourned the case until tomorrow (Tuesday) so she could repay the debt to the family.
According to the Manchester Evening News, the 27-year-old promised to get her friends cheap holidays in order to gain popularity and passed on the losses to her employer.
The judge described her scam as the ‘travel agency equivalent of a Ponzi scheme’.
Waterfall cried in the dock during Friday’s hearing.
Her defence lawyer described her actions as ‘immature and ill-thought out’ and said her 30-year-old partner was about to undergo open heart surgery.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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