A rogue trader who made £1.2million from selling fake vinyl records has been ordered to pay back even more of his ill-gotten gains after he accidentally overpaid his victims’ compensation.
Blundering Richard Hutter mistakenly sent victims £383,000 – £10,000 more than required – revealing that he had hidden the full extent of his wealth.
Investigators were prompted to re-examined his financial affairs and discovered a bank account he had not declared as well as assets such as cars and expensive watches.
Hutter, 56, has now been ordered to pay a further £229,000 within three months.
The counterfeit music salesman took advantage of the resurgence in vinyl LPs by selling thousands of fake records to unsuspecting customers for up to £35 each.
Richard Hutter, 56, has been ordered to pay customers, to whom he sold fake vinyl LPs for up to £35, an extra £229,000 on top of the original £373,000 compensation
Hutter was caught after trading standards bought albums from his website, including Songs For The Deaf by Queens Of The Stone Age (pictured) and found them to be fakes
Hutter’s £800,000 home in Ringwood, Hampshire, was searched and officers uncovered the massive scale of his dodgy operation
Hutter charged up to £35 for albums by bands including AC/DC, The Clash and Nirvana over a six year period.
He was only found out when an avid fan of The Clash bought a record and demanded his money back when he realised it was of poor sound quality.
When the refund was refused the customer complained to Trading Standards which launched an investigation.
Officials bought two sample records from Hutter’s online business – Guns and Roses’ Appetite for Destruction and Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the Deaf – which both turned out to be fakes.
Hutter’s £800,000 home in Ringwood, Hampshire, was searched and officers uncovered the massive scale of his dodgy operation.
In one year, he had listed almost 1,200 records for sale on eBay, not withstanding those sold on his own website and an American one.
When questioned Hutter denied knowing they were counterfeit records and said he had sourced from Europe and sold them on.
However he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of selling counterfeit records and one count of money laundering, to the value of £277,000.
He was sentenced at Bournemouth Crown Court in April 2023 and was given a four month prison sentence, suspended for 24 months.
Another of the salesman’s dodgy vinyl collection, which made him so much money that he unknowingly overpaid the compensation he was initially ordered to pay
Martin Thursby, of Dorset Council’s Trading Standards, said: ‘When he overpaid the £373,000 compensation payment by £10,000 and failed to notice it we thought, “where has he got that from?”
‘So we started looking into him again and our financial investigator found a bank account and other assets worth £229,000 that he had failed to declare, so it was quite a costly mistake on his part.’
Gill Taylor, Dorset Council’s cabinet member for regulatory services, said: ‘When our Trading Standards team investigates cases where the perpetrator has made significant sums of money from their crimes, we will always seek to recover this through confiscation.
‘If future assets are identified, we can apply to the courts to seize these until all the benefit from the crime has been recovered.
‘Unfortunately, counterfeiting is often seen by criminals as a low-risk, high-reward crime. It is often linked to money laundering and can be used to help fund other serious crimes.
‘It damages the UK economy, undermines the interests of legitimate businesses, and pushes up the cost to consumers of buying good quality genuine items. It is not a victimless crime.
‘We are extremely pleased with this result, and I’d like to thank everyone involved for their hard work.’
Vinyl sales declined rapidly after CDs were introduced but the resurgence in vinyl started in around 2010 as streaming became the most popular way to listen to music.
Demand for vinyl is said to be so great that there are not enough vinyl pressing plants to meet it which is where people like Hutter have tried to capitalise.