Richard Wallace imprisoned
A conman is behind bars after scamming buyers out of nearly $100,000 sales ruse involving vehicles.
Richard Wallace has been sent down for two years and eight months for what the judge described as a “sophisticated” scam targeting Trade Me users.
Wallace pleaded guilty to 22 charges of obtaining by deception a few days before his trial was scheduled to start. He conned 18 Trade Me customers out of a total of $95,400 between April 2015 and January 2017.
He claimed to be a registered motor-vehicle trader, and used several aliases such as George Auckland, Richard Worthington, Ricardo Wallacia and Allan Marble.
Wallace used falsified emails and names of bona-fide car dealers and companies, and invented excuses for delays in deliveries, which never arrived. The court heard he had historical convictions for fraud, but hadn’t offended in this country for about two decades.
However, his name and his aliases have been linked to several alleged scams over the past 15 years, many while it’s understood Wallace operated out of Mexico and Florida.
A previous court hearing heard Wallace’s ex-wife could advance him $25,000 for reparations, but those funds were unavailable at his sentencing hearing. Wallace has repaid some of the money, but $88,450 was outstanding so an order was made for the remainder to be repaid.
After being arrested in April 2017 following a television appearance on Police Ten 7, Wallace went on the run while on bail. He was re-arrested by police in October 2018 and was back before the courts a month later.
