Cleaner, 52, Blew £31,000 After Bungling Shop Staff Accidentally Transferred More Than £90,000 Into Her Bank Account When She Returned A £9 Item To Charity Store

A cleaner blew £31,000 after bungling shop staff accidentally transferred more than £90,000 into her bank account.

Two workers at the charity accidentally transferred more than £90,000 into wrong bank account.
They were suspended and subsequently dismissed over the mistake.

A cleaner blew £31,000 after bungling shop staff accidentally transferred more than £90,000 into her bank account. Once she realised the error, Konadu transferred £57,000 into other accounts including those of her family.

Comfort Konadu, 52, had returned a £9 item to a charity shop but it is believed staff added five noughts while entering the electronic credit note into the till.

At Manchester Crown Court Konadu admitted theft and was sentenced to 15 months in prison, suspended for two years.

She will now face a Proceeds of Crime hearing where she will be expected to return the outstanding £31,000 – which represents 18 months worth of profits for the charity shop. It is not known what the cash was spent on.

The incident occurred after Konadu went the Mencap shop in Openshaw, Manchester, on October 11 last year to get a refund for an item she had bought.

The following Monday senior managers at the charity were alerted to the large refund and contacted staff at branch who said there had been an ‘issue with the machine’ and £90,047.19 had been transferred to Konadu’s account in error.

The charity managed to quickly get back £40,000 of the missing money but some of the cash went through a number of different bank accounts.

Kate Gaskell prosecuting said: ‘Once the money was in there it would have been very obvious to her that that money should not have been in her bank account.

“The debit went in and was processed on October 11, but it was the weekend and it appears that the money doesn’t actually lend till October 14.”

“Thereafter on the same date October 14, all the financial activity takes place. On October 15, remaining £40,000 is frozen quickly and taken back by Barclays Bank.”

Konadu, of Openshaw, claimed she had been expecting £12,000 into her account from another source and said at first she assumed the transfer was legitmate.

She said when she was realised it was higher than expected she had tried to raise the issue with her bank.

In mitigation defence counsel Max Saffman said: ‘She has some family who live in this country and some who live in Ghana were some of the money went.

“She is from Ghana but she has been in this country for 15 years and is indefinitely to remain here and she has worked all the time she has been in this country as a cleaner.”

“The money was more than she could ever have dreamt of and temptation got the better of her.”

Sentencing Judge Nicholas Dean QC told Konadu: “You received a credit into your account of over £90,000 and you realised straight away that an error had been made.”

“You immediately should have reported it to both to your bank and to Mencap that the credit had been lodged in your account in error.”

“This was a serious amount of money and a serious offence which must be met with a sentence of imprisonment but you are a person of good character and the money came to you unexpectedly in error”

“I’m confident you will not re-offend as you are in normal circumstances a hard-working individual.”