A motorhome dealer from Fife has been jailed for 12 months after admitting to defrauding elderly customers out of £347,450 in life savings by selling their vehicles and keeping the proceeds.
Christine Galloway, who is in her 70s and from Cupar, ran the illegal scheme for nearly two years between 2016 and 2018. She was sentenced at Dundee Sheriff Court in June 2023 and later ordered to repay just £2,000 of her ill-gotten gains.
Victims left devastated
Among her victims were retired paramedics Robert and Carol Moore from Dunoon in Argyll. The couple handed their van over to Galloway in 2018 but have never seen their £32,000 retirement nest egg since. They had invested their pension funds in the Peugeot Boxer and were relying on the sale to help fund a dream trip to Canada, which instead left them in debt.
Speaking to the Record at the time, Robert said: “We ended up having to put more money on credit cards and cut the holiday short. We’ve not seen a penny and someone else is driving about with our van.” Carol added: “We wanted our day in court with her to tell her exactly what she’s done to these people. We just see her as a coward. She waited until the very last minute to make a plea. This was our pension pot. We could have sat it in the bank but we thought we would get enjoyment out of it instead. She took that away from us.”
Fraud details and other victims
Galloway was initially charged with ripping off customers to the tune of more than £750,000 by selling on almost 40 vehicles. However, the Crown accepted her guilty plea to fraudulently obtaining a lesser amount of £347,450 from a dozen clients. The scams took place between 2016 and 2018.
Victims were told they would receive payment within 30 days of the sale of their vans, with Galloway telling them to hand over keys and documents relating to the vehicles. But the company went into liquidation in 2018 while scores of customers were awaiting cash for the deals they had agreed. Victims were initially told the case was a civil matter, but investigators uncovered evidence of fraud.
Other victims included James Graham, who was 75 when he did a deal with the broker but has since passed away. He met Galloway in September 2016 and she agreed to sell his motorhome for £53,000. It was sold, but he never received a penny. Regular customer William Nicoll, 88, handed over his motorhome to be sold for £29,000. No payment was made to him and it was subsequently uncovered that Galloway had sold it for £24,000.
In December 2017, Thomas McCotter, 53, agreed that Galloway should take possession of his motorhome and sell it for a guaranteed £33,000. He heard nothing more for several months. He turned up in May to demand his cash and was given a cheque for £33,000 which did not clear with the bank. It later emerged it had been sold for just £27,000.
Further cases and sentencing
Alistair Falconer reached an agreement to sell his motorhome for £36,000, but he was told for several weeks that, despite considerable interest, the vehicle had not sold. However, Mr Falconer then received notification from DVLA that he was no longer the owner - and when he pressed Galloway she gave him a cheque which bounced. She subsequently gave him £18,000 due to a "cash flow problem" and promised the rest would follow, but only half of the agreed price was ever paid to Mr Falconer. Galloway had sold his vehicle for £30,000.
Joy Malcolm, 79, saw positive reviews for the company in January 2018 and agreed to sell her motorhome for £21,000. It was sold for £18,000, but she was not paid anything. William Urquhart, 86, agreed to sell his motorhome for £34,000, but he lost out when it was sold for £30,000 shortly before Galloway's company went into liquidation. Robert Moore, 66, agreed to sell for £32,000, but realised something was wrong when he saw comments on the company's Facebook page about it going out of business. His motorhome had been sold for £27,250.
Due to ill-health, William Cairns, 77, decided to sell his caravan for £20,050 in March 2018. The caravan was sold, but no payment was ever made to the pensioner. Galloway stalled for several months after selling on John Henderson's motorhome for the agreed £31,000. The company went into liquidation before he could be paid. Michael Brown, 76, agreed to sell his motorhome for £16,000 but Galloway ignored his requests for any update or payment, despite selling his vehicle for £17,000.
In March 2018, Robert Tod, 70, agreed to sell for £38,200 and only discovered the vehicle had been sold on by Galloway when the DVLA told him he was no longer the owner. His vehicle had been sold for just £32,000. Richard Llewelyn, 48, agreed to sell for £22,500 in October 2017.
During sentencing, Sheriff Alistair Carmichael told Galloway: "You pled guilty to a serious offence in which you obtained almost £350,000 by fraud over a 21-month period. Several victims of the fraud were elderly people who had put their trust in you to act honestly. Your business at one time was well-run and respected. This consisted of multiple individual frauds over 21 months and your actions were deliberate, calculated and organised. To adequately express society's disapproval and to punish you and deter others there is no alternative but a custodial sentence. I will take into account your age, the remorse you've shown and your lack of previous convictions."
