A teenager who used a credit card she found in the street to go on an online clothes shopping spree has escaped conviction.
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Magistrate Tony Murray accepted that Brittany Lowe’s crimes were “opportunistic” and at the lower end of the scale.
“She wasn’t the smartest of criminals,” Mr Murray told Lowe, 18, in Albury Local Court this week.
“Clearly it’s not a very sophisticated fraud.”
The court heard that Lowe used the card to buy the items online, then used her own name and address for the shipping of her purchase.
Lowe used the found card to buy a dress and a top, the order including postage totalling $118.90.
The case against Lowe was first brought before the court on November 3.
Lowe failed to appear that day to answer two counts of dishonestly obtaining property by deception and one of larceny.
Defence solicitor Jason Hanke said Lowe did not front the court then because she mistakenly thought she was supposed to be in court later in the year.
Her offending, he said, occurred in the middle of preparing for her Year 12 exams.
Mr Hanke said Lowe definitely took the matter seriously as she felt guilty when she made the purchases.
But she thought the card holder would probably cancel the purchases and had hoped the whole matter “would go away”.
Police said Lowe reckoned that it would be “cool” to use the credit card, which she found while walking home.
The victim realised someone else had used her Commonwealth Bank card on August 18 when she went to withdraw some money, only to find the account had insufficient funds.
She rang the bank, cancelled the card and made further inquiries that revealed two purchases were made earlier that day on the Internet.
One was at 2.06pm and the other at 2.17pm, both via the online shopping website Peppermayo.
Lowe told police she found the debit card “in an unknown street”.
Mr Murray placed Lowe on a two-year good behaviour bond.
He ordered that she pay $118.90 compensation.
