Student jailed for five months for city hotel credit card scam

By Martina Nee

A non-national student was sentenced to five months in jail at Galway District Court this week for attempting to book rooms in a four star hotel using stolen credit card details.

Kehinde Oduneye (22) with an address at 24 Earlsfort View, Lucan, Dublin, pleaded guilty to the charge of dishonestly by deception attempt to gain for himself and others reserve accommodation at The Ardilaun hotel, Taylor’s Hill, by using details from a compromised Visa credit card on August 22, 2008.

Inspector Mick Coppinger said that on August 16 vouchers worth €1,142 had been bought by the defendant, using the Visa card, on the internet from a website which advertises hotels. He said that the real owner of the credit card reported the transaction as fraudulent and that the defendant had had used the card to book three rooms in The Ardilaun hotel. When Oduneye was arrested he admitted that he had got the credit card details from a fellow Nigerian man.

Defence solicitor Adrian MacLynn said that it had been an “opportunistic crime” committed by the defendant who had been coming to Galway to attend a wedding but had no money and he had been approached by a friend. Mr MacLynn went on to say that Oduneye admitted he knew it was a fraudulent transaction and that it was “quite obvious someone else’s card was used”. He said that the defendant has been in the country for six years and is currently a third year biotechnology student at DCU. The court also heard how the defendant, who has no previous convictions, had been doing well but according to Mr MacLynn had “succumbed to this temptation”. He said that the hotel has been fully compensated.

“This is very serious,” replied Judge Mary Fahy who added that there were “hundreds of people in this city who had their details compromised”.

“This is a huge scam in this country at the moment and Galway was particularly hit by it. People were going to their bank accounts to find that they had been cleaned out and that this was done in Canada and other countries... Who does he think he is? Does he think he’s entitled to scam people and use a card to stay in a four star hotel? The court has to treat this seriously,” said an unimpressed judge.

Judge Fahy then asked Inspector Coppinger if any of the details given by the defendant were useful to gardai in further investigations. He replied that the name of the person who had supplied the card details was given to gardai but that this person was outside their jurisdiction and it is unclear if he even existed.

“I am having serious difficulty with it,” warned Judge Fahy, but she added “this scam affects ordinary people who now have no faith in the system when they go to the shops and are watching over their shoulders.”

Judge Fahy imposed a five month sentence and gave leave for appeal and that appeal was lodged yesterday (Wednesday). Recognisance was fixed on €1,000 with independent surety of €2,000, one half to be lodged.