Facebook fraudster conned victims with fake app

Adam Coleman admitted seven charges at Bradford Crown Court

A Facebook Marketplace fraudster who swindled his victims out of e-bikes, phones and a Land Rover has been jailed for two years and three months.

Adam Coleman, 40, used a fake banking app to trick unsuspecting sellers into handing over expensive items between May 2024 and March of this year.

Coleman, of Mary Street in Bradford, targeted people across West Yorkshire and King's Lynn in Norfolk.

The defendant, who had 27 previous convictions, admitted four charges of fraud, two counts of theft and one of common assault at Bradford Crown Court.

Prosecutor David Ward told the court how Coleman was involved in taking a £2,400 e-bike from a man in the Cookridge area of Leeds last year, but he was identified from Ring doorbell footage.

In February this year a woman's Land Rover vehicle worth over £5,000 was obtained by Coleman using the bogus app, the court was told. It was later recovered, bearing false plates, from the caravan site where he lived.

The following month a Huddersfield man advertised two iPhone 16s for sale which Coleman took away using the fake app.

When that customer contacted him it was said Coleman told him: "You don't know who I am and what I can do. I will come to your house and destroy your property."

Mr Ward also told how in another offence, in Bradford, Coleman and another man took a £4,000 KTM motorbike. As they fled the scene one of them made a threat to stab the seller.

Representing the defendant, barrister Nicholas Leadbeater conceded that his only mitigation was his early guilty pleas.

Recorder Anthony Hawks said Coleman had "an appalling record" adding: "You're becoming, if you haven't already become, a career criminal in my judgement."

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