Amy Molloy cheated on elderly residents in North Yorkshire

For five months, Amy Molloy traveled across England to visit elderly people to collect their bank cards after an accomplice posing as her bank representative convinced her they had been compromised, said Andrew Finlay, who is leading the charge represents.

She used the cards to withdraw money from victims’ bank accounts or to spend it on high-end products at Apple stores, York Crown Court learned.

A North Yorkshire victim described how Molloy’s behavior had made her “stupid” and darkened the final days of her husband’s life.

She said she couldn’t believe how “someone could show up at the door smiling and polite” to commit the scam.

Molloy told a friend: “I cheat people out of money. It’s my main source of income,” Mr Finlay said.

Judge Simon Hickey told her, “For defrauding such elderly victims during this time, by using their car to travel to different areas, the only appropriate punishment can be achieved by an immediate prison sentence.” He jailed her for two years .

The six victims of the scam were aged 96, 95, 93, 86, 79 and 70 and lived in North Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire and Cheshire, York Crown Court heard.

Through her lawyer, Gemma Noble, Molloy claimed she did not know the victims’ ages, but the judge said she must have known.

Molloy, of Thomas Way, Braintree, Essex, pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud by providing false information to acquire bank cards, three counts of fraud using the cards, two counts of theft using the cards at ATMs and one count of illegal possession of cash.

In her plea, she alleged that she acted on the instructions of a man who told her where to pick up the cards and where to use them, and who took the money and items purchased with them from her. The man then paid her around £500. She didn’t know how the victims’ data had been obtained.

Mr Finlay said the victims lost a total of £146,834 but Molloy was only responsible for £27,626.

She was arrested and charged by the North Yorkshire Police Economic Crime Unit.

Ms Noble said Molloy had benefited about £4,000 in total.

She stopped doing it after December 2021 because she felt guilty about what she was doing and didn’t want to continue. She had no criminal record.

Now living on Universal Credit, she planned to start her own business selling digital designs online for a living.