A travel agent who previously defrauded customers and received a suspended jail sentence has been back in court after admitting to a new scam involving holidays booked through Facebook. Rebecca Waterfall, 37, pleaded guilty to seven counts of fraud by false representation and one count of money laundering, which occurred between January and May 2023.
Manchester Magistrates' Court heard that Waterfall obtained customers' bank card details and used them to book trips for herself. One such booking was for a luxury hotel costing £3,467. She also defrauded another customer of £1,136 and laundered an additional £3,530 into a third-party account.
Prosecutors stated that victims believed they could trust Waterfall. However, some became suspicious and contacted the travel agency's office. The scheme was exposed when Waterfall booked a holiday to Antalya, Turkey, using a customer's card details but her own email address.
Defending Waterfall, Kerry Morgan described the crimes as unsophisticated and noted that her client was "trying to show her family she had the means to give them a nice life." Despite this, magistrates emphasized the impact on the victims, particularly after Waterfall claimed in a pre-sentence report that she had "never really understood the value of money."
The case has been sent to Manchester Crown Court for sentencing next month. Waterfall has a history of fraud convictions, with a previous court appearance in 2017 revealing that she had defrauded clients of more than £10,000. In that instance, she used an employer's credit card to pay for holidays for friends and family, including a trip to Walt Disney World for one family that was ultimately canceled. She also used credit cards for trips to Cuba and Switzerland, passing the losses onto the travel company.
At the time, a judge described her actions as "the travel agency equivalent of a Ponzi scheme." A nine-month sentence was activated in 2019 after she breached the terms of a suspended sentence. In 2021, Waterfall admitted to further fraud charges, including using a customer's credit card in 2018 to book a £1,400 holiday to Menorca, along with unauthorized shopping expenses and payments to a currency firm. On that occasion, she received a community order, with a judge deeming it inappropriate to send her to prison.