After learning that during flights payments are not processed until landing, Peter Jackson and Geoffrey Dunn stocked up on Duty Free products and managed to con the airlines hundreds of pounds worth of goods each time they flew.
During their trips between Newcastle, London, Geneva, Manchester and Dublin, the two con artists managed to steal a total of £3,000 of duty free goods with maxed-out credit cards because the crew didn’t verify them in mid-air. They first heard that payments could not be verified until a flight had landed from some crew members. This led them thinking about their evil plan and ended up exploiting this loophole which basically meant that all mid-air transaction were authorized automatically.
Judge Tim Gittins, at Newcastle Crown Court, told the two accused thieves: «What you did was to use the loophole, knowing that such transactions on flights would not be processed until the flights had landed because of the difficulties with internet connection at the time… I suspect that since the offences that position has changed and it is less likely someone (else) will be able to get away with that sort of dishonesty. «
