A South Australian man who used fraudulent credit card details to scam businesses out of $35,000 has been released from jail early after an appeal to the Supreme Court.
David John Bagnara, 27, was convicted of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from service stations, pharmacies and a Mitre 10 store over six months.
Justice Adam Kimber in an appeal judgement said the offending was "persistent" with "a degree of sophistication".
Bagnara used an algorithm to generate credit card numbers.
He would damage his own card and required the store to manually enter his numbers into the EFTPOS terminal.
He would then enter fraudulent credit card details in EFTPOS settings to complete transactions.
In November last year, Bagnara ordered different items over the phone from a Mitre 10 shop in Balhannah using fake credit card details.
Bagnara picked up some of the products while other goods were delivered to a storage unit.
The Mitre 10 store lost $10,371 in multiple transactions over three days.
SA businesses victims of fraud
Mazzone Jewellers was another victim of the scam, losing $7,280 in December last year.
In one occasion at a Broadview retailer, the 27-year-old purchased items worth $20 but manually entered $2,000 into the EFTPOS machine using false credit card details.
When the transaction was completed, he demanded the store refund $2,000 in cash.
In December, Bagnara tried to buy gambling tickets valued at $800 at a service station in Clearview, but only $300 worth of tickets were printed, requiring the service attendant to refund $500.
When the service attendant could not refund the money using the EFTPOS terminal, Bagnara was offered $100, which he accepted, and was asked to return the next day for the remaining $400.
A Mount Barker service station lost $5,438.46 when he made seven manual transactions using false credit card information.
In the appeal, Justice Kimber found the magistrate erred in sentencing one of 13 counts as theft when it was attempted theft.
Bagnara's guilty pleas also meant he was entitled to a reduction of up to 40 per cent for some offences, but the magistrate only granted a 30 per cent reduction.
Justice Kimber gave Bagnara a sentence of 10 months — with six months and 12 days in jail and the remainder to be spent in the community under supervision.
The sentence was backdated to December 17 when Bagnara was remanded into custody, which meant he was released this week.
Aussies vulnerable to credit card fraud
Data from the Australian Payments Network showed that card fraud cost $490.1 million in the 2020-21 financial year – an increase of 9.2 per cent from the year prior.
Crime Stoppers SA chief executive Nigel Smart said the rise in card fraud could be attributed to the pandemic and more people purchasing online when at home.
"These are areas of opportunity for criminals and criminal groups that are more tech-savvy, they can find ways to manipulate the system," Mr Smart said.
But he said people who are elderly or less educated were more vulnerable to card fraud as they were less likely to detect fraudulent transactions until it was too late.
"[Criminals] are doing it to hundreds and hundreds of people, it is a big issue," he said.
"[Card fraud] is growing by 10 per cent every year, that's compounding year on year."
