‘Perverse pleasure’ from fake credit card applications
A SERIAL fraudster gets a “perverse pleasure” from applying for credit cards and bank accounts using innocent people’s details.
The first the victims knew their personal details had been used was when letters from institutions including Halifax, Lloyds, Santander and First Direct landed on their doormats about their applications. The total potential amount of credit Carl Jones had applied for was around £100,000.
The conman began applying online for the credit almost immediately after walking out of prison on licence following a previous conviction for doing exactly the same thing.
The defendant’s advocate told Swansea Crown Court that his 35-year-old client gets a “buzz” from making applications, and derives a “perverse pleasure” from his online activities.
The court heard that in March this year police received reports which suggested that Jones was using the details of third parties to apply for credit. Megan Jones, prosecuting, said police found Jones had made more than 20 applications to financial institutions including Halifax, Lloyds, Nationwide, Virgin Money, Santander, TSB and First Direct in the names of three people. She said in total the defendant had applied for a total of £100,000 in credit from the various banks.
In October 2018 Jones was sentenced to 28 months in prison after using people’s personal details to try to open more than 60 bank accounts, offending which started just two days after getting out of prison following his release from a sentence for doing exactly the same thing. The court heard his most recent spate of online offending started in March 2020, shortly after he would have been released at the half-way point of his 28 month sentence.
The court heard an impact statement from one of his new victims in which he said Jones’s activities had affected his credit score, and forced him to postpone plans to move house.
He said he was concerned someone had got hold his personal details, and had been left checking his bank account on a daily basis as a result.
Carl Winston Jones – also known as Carl Daniels – formerly of March Hywel in Cilfrew but now of Windsor Road, Neath, had previously pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud by false representation when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has three previous convictions for seven offences, two of which are for identical pieces of offending.
Andrew Evans, for Jones, said there was no financial motivation behind the defendant’s actions, but rather he “feels compelled” to make applications for credit and gets a “buzz” and a “perverse pleasure” from doing so.
He said his client had grown up in the care system and had suffered “a number of adverse childhood experiences which he feels he has never come to terms with”, and had taken to self-medicating with cocaine and amphetamine which at times meant he didn’t sleep for days on end. The advocate said Jones was hopeful of getting help while serving the inevitable custodial sentence he was facing.
Judge Geraint Walters said while the facts of what Jones had done were simple, the motivation which lay behind it was “less easy to understand”. He said the defendant seemed obsessed with applying for credit facilities in other people’s name online, and said such cybercrime had a big impact on people who were left worried about the security of their financial and personal details.
With a one-third discount for his guilty pleas Jones was sentenced to 32 months in prison. He will serve up to half that period in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.