A student has been jailed after buying electrical goods worth thousands of pounds with a fake credit card, it has been revealed.

Mr Chun-Ku Lin, 23 was sentenced for six months in jail after being caught with a counterfeit credit card at an Argos store in Bournemouth town centre. The student attempted to ‘buy’ an iPod worth £200 and a sat-nav worth £400.

According to prosecutor, Carolyn Brantford-Wood, the manager of Argos telephoned MasterCard after he became aware of something peculiar in the card.

He was told that the card was in fact a clone of a Barclay card from a woman in Wales.

Police also found two other counterfeit cards on the student’s possession. It was also found that the credit cards were used for a number of transactions in Bristol which totalled over £4,000 worth of goods.

Lin pleaded guilty of committing fraud by false representation and admitted that he was in financial trouble. He said that the payment he expected to receive for the goods would help to cover overdrafts and other bank charges.

Defending, Mr Brian Sharman said that the student confessed he was a: “junior member of a larger operation.”

 “He was a low-level operator in a fairly sophisticated criminal enterprise. He got caught up at the bottom end of one such group,” added Mr Sharman.

Research shows that there has been an increase in the number of people turning to their credit cards as a bid to fight off the current economical crisis.