Natasha East, a mortgage adviser from Llanelli, charged clients additional fees, which she then pocketed, according to Wales Online.
Natasha East, a mortgage adviser from Llanelli, charged clients additional fees, which she then pocketed, according to Wales Online.
East instructed her customers to pay fees directly into her personal bank account in order to avoid the firm she worked for finding out about the theft.
The fees ranged from £99 to £499, and over the course of two years, East stole £4,500 from 18 individuals customers.
The scam was uncovered when a customer asked to contact the owner of the firm that East worked for, after she had instructed them to pay fees directly into her bank account.
The manager then informed the client not to pay the fee and reported it to the police.
However, East denied the allegations against her and insisted they were fabricated by her boss after she supposedly refused to go on a date.
Additionally, East originally lied to her manager after they had discovered her illegal activity, insisting that she had charged fees on four or five occasions and asked them not to tell anyone.
East also contacted several of the victims and asked them to lie about having been charged additional fees.
Moreover, the court heard that a number of the victims were friends of East from school, and who had specifically trusted her to assist them on their property journey.
A judge at Swansea Grown Court told East she had "acted as an entirely dishonest person" who had caused a good deal of anxiety and stress to a lot of people.
