TAS Caught Shoplifting or committing fraud

[DMLegal]

Fraud is “obtaining a benefit by deceit”. That sounds like what has happened here. Shoplifting is not an offence, stealing is, but if the iPhones were paid for, then they cannot be considered stolen. It’s most likely going to be fraud, doesn’t matter who fiddled with it either, they would be charged as a party, even if he was just the phone holder or driver etc.

 

[Bill Murray]

All of this assumes the law in TAS is similar to QLD which it probably is. If they used their own cards then it'd be harder as proving they did not intend to make payment gets harder. That said, turning off the machines or disconnecting their network connection to force them into offline mode would go a long way to proving that intent. I'd run with it. It's a criminal matter as soon as they had the intent to deprive. If the machines were offline due to no fault of the person using them then it is civil as they made an honest and reasonable attempt to pay. The cards could have been stopped, expired etc. Really there are a huge number of scenarios.

Using stolen cards is instantly fraud. Whether it goes through or not - it won't matter.

 

[DMLegal]

State criminal laws are rarely exactly the same, QLD and WA are the most similar. The relevant provision in the TAS crim code is 253A:

253A. Fraud

Any person who, with intent to defraud, or by deceit or any fraudulent means –

(a) obtains property from a person; or

(b) induces a person to –
(i) deliver, transfer, or assign, property to another person; or
(ii) cause property to be delivered, transferred, or assigned, to another person; or

(c) gains a benefit, pecuniary or otherwise, for any person; or

(d) causes a detriment, pecuniary or otherwise, to any person; or

(e) induces any person to do an act that the person is lawfully entitled to abstain from doing; or

(f) induces any person to abstain from doing any act that the person is lawfully entitled to do –is guilty of a crime.

 

[Bill Murray]

Which is pretty close to Queensland. Tasmanian fraud laws are based on WA legislation anyway.

All of my posts are relevant to Tasmanian law then. Both (a) and (c) will apply. The method used (stolen, expired, cancelled, insufficient funds) will be irrelevant. By tampering with the machine you are easily going to be able to prove the intent to defraud. Even more so if the idiots agreed to an interview.

 

[Lucaslly97]

It comes down to how the boyfriend is associated with these guys?
If he just stays outside the shop and receives financial benefits, it may be wise to claim that he is just here to help resell the iphone and barely know about the crimes or ways in which the iphones were obtained?
In which case he is also a victim of the fraud the other guys are committing?
If people clearly can proof he is part of the group when they try to steal and mess up the eftop machine, then unless they can make flawless excuse on what they are doing with the eftop machine, your boyfriend would still be in trouble?
Too much unknown, cannot give you anything accurate. But worst case assuming if your information is accurate in that your boyfriend is not with the group in the actions of stealing and messing with the eftop machine, then I would encourage to not admit knowledge what the other guys are doing because afterall, if you weren't there how can you be sure of what is going on? Hopefully that will lessen the attention onto your boyfriend thus lessening the overall punishment.