A Bolton man who tried to use a charity’s bank account to pay for car insurance has been sentenced. The case was investigated by detectives from the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) when the insurer – Swiftcover – discovered the account provided belonged to a charity and not to the car owner as stated in his application.
Imran Aslam was sentenced on Friday, 10th June at Bolton Magistrates’ Court to 22 weeks’ imprisonment (suspended for 18 months) and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and to pay £165 costs. He pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud by false representation after he tried to use stolen debit card details and a charity bank account to pay for the £1,875 motor insurance premium.
On 1 August 2013, Aslam contacted Swiftcover to set up a motor insurance policy for his Vauxhall Astra. In order to pay the deposit for the policy, Aslam provided the insurer with debit card details. For the direct debit payments to cover the remainder of the policy, Aslam then provided bank account and sort code details and the policy was put in place.
However, when staff later attempted to process the payments and set the direct debit up with the bank it emerged that neither the card nor the account belonged to Aslam. In fact, the account details Aslam provided were linked to a charity and the debit card belonged to a man living in Edinburgh.
The case was passed on to IFED for further investigation and officers confirmed with the charity and debit card owner that Aslam had not been given permission or authorisation to use their account details to make the payments and in any case, the charity’s account was a ‘deposit only’ account that the public could use to make donations. Officers arrested Aslam in April 2014, but when questioned, he refused to reveal how he came by the debit card details.
He was subsequently charged with two counts of fraud by false representation and appeared at Bolton Magistrates’ Court on 10 June where he pleaded guilty to both offences and was sentenced as above.
Detective Sergeant Matt Hussey from the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department said: “Aslam used stolen debit card details and a charity’s bank account to try and get his vehicle insured. The fraud was quickly identified by Swiftcover when they came to process the payments and thankfully, neither the card holder nor the charity was left out of pocket.
“Providing false details either when applying for insurance, or when making an insurance claim is fraud, it’s a criminal offence and if you do this, then you could find yourself in front of a court like Aslam has.”