Vodafone Employee Convicted for Abusing Company Credit Card

A Vodafone UK employee who racked up a bill of nearly £22,000 on his company credit card was sentenced to a 10 month suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to the charges. Michael Cotter, 25, worked for Vodafone's learning and career development team at the Birchwood customer service centre when he was given a promotion, which included use of a company credit card in January 2005.

He was warned about his spending in March 2008, but carried on spending until he was arrested in May. He was authorised to use the card for personal purposes, so long as the transactions were correctly recorded, but it was not revealed how much of the spending was personal and how much was for business.

When he was arrested, he admitted the crime and has been paying the money back to Vodafone - which counted in his favour with the court, hence the suspended sentence. He was also ordered to carry out 150 hours of community service.

Posted to the site on 11th January 2009