Five British individuals have been jailed for making multiple
fraudulent credit card applications to the web sites of Egg,
Cahoot, Smile, Marbles, MBNA and SonyCard, according to a report by
ZDNet News.
The six month investigation, dubbed Operation Skoda, involved
police working with Egg to create software to detect multiple
on-line account applications. Four men and one woman were arrested
in August 2000 and charged under the Criminal Justice Act. Last
week they received sentences at Aylesbury Crown Court ranging from
60 hours’ community service to 30 months’ imprisonment.
At the time of the arrests, a spokesman for Smile pointed out
that: “the internet is irrelevant in this case – it would be the
same operation whether they had applied by post or on-line.”
According to reports, the total sum defrauded was around
£100,000.
