A internet trader defrauded customers out of hundreds of pounds after setting up an online business selling farm equipment.
Lisa Lombardi, who traded as moo2ewe, took money from customers for orders but the goods were never supplied.
David Outterside, prosecuting at Lincoln Crown Court on Tuesday, said that customers were left out of pocket and then had difficulty in making contact with Lombardi.
Mr Outterside said: “This may well have been an honest business when it started but by December 2012 she was taking money from bona fide customers knowing there was no prospect of those goods being delivered.”
One customer ordered sheep hurdles paying £348 by cheque and contacted Lombardi the following month to demand his order was fulfilled.
Mr Outterside said: “He was phoning, texting and emailing her without any response.
“In the end he wrote to the defendant making it plain his order had not been delivered.”
Another victim made a payment of £360 directly into the bank account of Lombardi’s husband, as instructed, but never received her order for a lambing machine and sheep hurdles despite Lombardi promising her husband would deliver the items “without fail”.
Lombardi (50), of Jekylls Bank, Moulton Eaugate, admitted nine charges of fraud involving £2,437 between October 2012 and March 2013.
She was given an eight month jail sentence suspended for two years with 125 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £2,437 compensation to her victims within the next three months.
Judge Simon Hirst, passing sentence, told her: “What you did was to take money from people, make a host of promises to them and then not supply the goods to them.
“The custodial threshold has been passed but given the time that has passed since these offences and the fact that you have stayed out of trouble in the interim it seems to me that it is appropriate to suspend the sentence.”
John McNally, defending, said Lombardi was able to borrow money from family members to pay compensation.
He said: “She tried to trade her way out of difficulties but she did not generate enough money to do that.”
