A CALLOUS car dealer who tried to blame his dead colleague for £140,000-worth of fraudulent credit card transactions he made with a Midland bank has been jailed for 15 months.

Edward Smith, of Windmill Lane, Balsall Common, also unsuccessfully tried to carry out 32 more transactions at his business near Solihull for a further total of £160,000.

The 54-year-old pleaded guilty to fraud and two charges of attempted fraud at Warwick Crown Court.

Prosecutor Madhu Rai said Smith was the director of Enterprise Specialist Cars, at Bradnocks Marsh business centre.

In November 2006 he signed an agreement with Royal Bank of Scotland to use a ‘chip and pin’ machine for customers who wanted to pay by debit or credit card.

But between December 2007 and February the following year he put through a series of fraudulent sales by entering the card details manually, known as a pan-key transaction, rather than the normal method of swiping the cards.

As a result a total of £140,018 was paid into his account, although when they became suspicious of his activity RBoS managed to withhold £98,963 of it before it could be cleared.

In addition there had been a further 32 for a total of £160,823 which had been declined at the authorisation stage, said Miss Rai.