A Fife woman designed an elaborate fraud in a bid to solve her money worries, a court has heard.
Acting with an unnamed accomplice, estate agent Emma Morgan hatched a plan to sell a car for which she was still paying monthly sums to a finance company.
Perth Sheriff Court heard on Wednesday that Morgan (28), of Orebridge, Thornton, had split from her partner and was struggling to make £291 payments.
Following a failed bid to sell the car on eBay, Morgan sought advice from an acquaintance and devised a more sophisticated plan.
After having the car fitted with false number plates, removing identifying marks from its windscreen and falsifying documents, she entered the car for sale with the Scottish Motor Auction Group at Kinross.
The car sold for £8,000 but the plan was foiled when auctions staff found the vehicle ID number had been removed and that the vehicle’s identity had been cloned.
Morgan was charged by police and at court pled guilty to a charge that on August 13 2010, at SMAG, she pretended that she was the lawful owner of a vehicle registered GF09 ZZJ and produced false documentation when it was in fact a vehicle registered YP59 GUW on which number plates had been changed and the VI altered.
The charge she pled guilty to continued in that she then put the car into an auction for sale, attempting to induce SMAG to sell the car on her behalf and deliver to her the proceeds of the sale and attempted to obtain £8,000 by fraud.
Sheriff Robert McCreadie imposed a commenting service order, requiring her to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work.