Australian woman printed own barcodes in £2,760 self-service Coles supermarket scam

Scam: The woman targeted supermarkets including Coles
Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg via Getty Image
Mark Chandler14 February 2017

A woman who printed out her own barcodes to steal £2,760 worth of groceries in an elaborate self-service checkout scam has been spared jail.

Kylie Milner, from Queensland in Australia, made photocopies of barcodes for 44p instant noodles and then attached them to sticky labels.

During her visits to Coles and Woolworths, she stuck the new barcodes to expensive goods including coffee machines and meat which she then scanned through at the checkout.

The 35-year-old was caught when staff noticed she always appeared nervous when scanning her shopping, The Queensland Times reported.

A police investigation revealed she had used her fake barcodes on 31 occasions.

A raid of her home uncovered copies of the illicit barcodes and a horde of glue sticks.

Milner admitted 31 counts of fraud and three of attempted fraud at Australia's Ipswich Magistrates' Court this week, where she was handed a nine-month suspended sentence.

Defence lawyer Matthew Fairclough said his client was bankrupt and the deception was caused “largely by need rather than greed”, the paper reported.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT