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Woman jailed for £32,000 John Lewis fraud (10 February 2015)

Date: 10/02/2015
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Woman jailed for £32,000 John Lewis fraud

A 55-year-old former nanny has been jailed by Aylesbury Crown Court, after defrauding high street store John Lewis of nearly £33,000 in a con which involved returning clothes for multiple refunds.

The Telegraph reports that Laime Butke – originally from Lithuania – used six different credit cards to buy hundreds of pounds worth of clothes from a John Lewis branch. She would then return the clothes the next day, claiming they did not fit and she did not have the original receipt.

After obtaining a refund she would then visit another store days later, choose the same clothes and take them straight to customer services with the original receipt and obtain another refund.

In just a few weeks, she obtained £6,000 by carrying out the scam on eight separate occasions.

The court heard that Butke employed the deception at branches of John Lewis all over the south of England and the Midlands between May 2013 and December 2014, including branches in London, Cambridge, Southampton, High Wycombe, Kingston Upon Thames and Leicester.

On one occasion she told a branch of the store that her receipt had been caught by the wind as she opened her purse and it had blown away.

Fraud investigators were alerted when it was noticed that there were an unusual number of transactions for refunds relating to credit cards held under Butke’s name.

A sting operation was set up to catch Butke and she was arrested in December, by which time she had fraudulently obtained a total of £32,254 in unlawful refunds from the store.

At an earlier hearing, Butke had told the court that she needed the money to pay for an operation for her elderly mother – she pleaded guilty to a total of nine counts of fraud and was sentenced last week.

Butke’s defence lawyer had told the court that she had come to the UK as a nanny in 2008 and was earning £300 a week, most of which she sent back to her family in Lithuania, while living in bed and breakfast hotels costing £30 a night.

She had started defrauding John Lewis after being made redundant after her employer moved to China.

The court heard that she had not been living a “lavish” lifestyle as a result of the scam – and most of the money went to her family in Lithuania.

Judge Francis Sheridan told Butke that she would be deported after serving her sentence, adding that what she had done was down to “greed and dishonesty”.

“You are thoroughly dishonest – what you did is, you went in, took an item, you'd come back the next day and claim you didn't have the receipt. If it is not sophisticated, it is certainly more devious or both.

“It hurts a decent company and they are a decent company – some might think they are a national institution…

“The Home Secretary will be required to deport you at the end of your sentence.”

John Lewis declined to comment on the case.

Duncan Lewis Fraud Lawyers

Duncan Lewis fraud lawyers can advise at any stage of a charge for fraud, including charges relating to credit card fraud, financial fraud or company fraud.

Duncan Lewis is also a leading firm of Legal Aid criminal lawyers and can advise on fraud charges involving:

• Benefit fraud
• Blue Badge fraud
• Boiler room scams
• Housing fraud
• Identity fraud
• Insurance fraud
• Investment fraud
• Mortgage fraud
• Motor insurance fraud
• Ponzi schemes.


For expert legal advice on all fraud charges and representation for police interview under caution, call Duncan Lewis fraud lawyers on 020 7923 4020.

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