‘Industrial’ shoplifter made £500,000 tricking shops into fake refunds

'She exposed loopholes in till operating systems. A lot of those, I'm pleased to say, have now been closed.'

A woman who shoplifted on an ‘industrial’ scale by tricking shops into giving her refunds has been jailed.

Narinder Kaur, also known as Nina Tiara, tricked more than 1,000 retailers into refunding her for items she’d never actually purchased.

Kaur, 51, made it her full-time career to travel all over the country, steal items from high street stores, and dishonestly claim refunds on those items, sometimes on multiple occasions.

During the trial, the prosecution proved that Kaur defrauded retailers over a thousand times between July 2015 and February 2019.

A close examination of her many bank and credit card accounts showed she had defrauded Boots stores including those in Cheltenham, Malvern, Solihull, Droitwich, Kidderminster, Dudley and Smethwick.

Between July 2015 and September 2019, she received £60,787.09 in refunds from Boots, despite having only spent £5,172.73 with the high street retailer during that same period.

She also received £42,853.65 in refunds from Debenhams despite having only spent have £3,681.33 during a four-year period, and she received £33,131.61 in refunds from John Lewis stores having only spent £5,290.36 between August 2015 and December 2018.

Kaur claimed £23,000 more in refunds than in payments made at branches of Monsoon across the country.

Between January and July 2018, Kaur also targeted several House of Fraser stores where she spent £2,853.55 and claimed refunds of £23,147.75.

Between 2018 and early 2019, she defrauded 14 Homesense stores of £19,540.17 yet she only spent £1,181.45.

In addition, over the same period she defrauded TK Maxx of some £14,563.53.

Kaur targeted Homebase between August 2015 and February 2019 and defrauded the company of £3,238.47.

She also attempted to defraud Wiltshire Council of £7,400 by overpaying using stolen credit cards and then contacting the council for a refund claiming she had accidentally made a payment with too many zeros.

Kaur, of Cleverton in Wiltshire, was convicted of 26 charges including fraud, possessing and transferring criminal property and perverting the course of justice following a four-month trial at Gloucester crown court.

She also lied to the court and produced false documentations to avoid being convicted of speeding offences and to relax her bail conditions.

Sentencing her in her absence, Judge Ian Lawrie KC labelled her as a ‘thoroughly dishonest individual’ as she was handed a 10-year prison sentence.

During two police searches of her home, around £150,000 in cash was found hidden away as well as stolen goods.

Kaur was seen on CCTV entering stores, taking items from the shelves and taking them to the tills as if they had been previously purchased.

Steve Tristram, a fraud investigator for West Mercia Police, said: ‘She is, without doubt, the most dishonest person I’ve ever dealt with in 40 years of policing.

‘She exposed loopholes in till operating systems. A lot of those, I’m pleased to say, have now been closed.

‘She would very often steal items, claiming that she’d previously purchased them.

‘She would then buy additional items, obtain refund receipts, take that to another store and fool the the store operator into believing that she’d previously purchased those items.

‘It was it was easy for her. She did this so often that she she became adept at it. And £2,000 a week is a lot of money.’

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