{"id":195401,"date":"2025-12-21T21:27:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T21:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/195401\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T21:27:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T21:27:19","slug":"haley-mullens-tiny-home-scam-that-left-a-big-dent-in-her-victims-pocket-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/195401\/","title":{"rendered":"Haley Mullen’s tiny home scam that left a big dent in her victim’s pocket"},"content":{"rendered":"

First published on \"NZ<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Beekbergen,<\/p>\n

\nFile image. Hamilton mum Haley Mullen was sentenced to four months’ home detention after defrauding a woman on Facebook by listing a tiny home for sale that didn’t exist.
\nPhoto: 123RF\n<\/p>\n

A woman who listed a tiny home for sale that didn’t exist before pocketing the money will now pay the victim back at $20 a week.<\/p>\n

It will take Haley Denyse Mullen about three years to pay the victim $3125 after defrauding her last year.<\/p>\n

The 39-year-old appeared in the Hamilton District Court for sentencing this week on a charge of obtaining by deception and was given a dressing down by Judge Garry Collin.<\/p>\n

“You didn’t deliver the tiny home because there wasn’t one.<\/p>\n

“There was an innocent victim here.<\/p>\n

“Their circumstances were probably not a lot better than yours.<\/p>\n

“They needed a home. You have stolen from them.”<\/p>\n

‘I wanted easy money’<\/p>\n

Mullen, using the fake name Riley Simpson, listed the tiny home for sale on Facebook on October 29 last year for $3125.<\/p>\n

The victim inquired and, believing it to be legitimate, agreed to buy it and duly transferred the money.<\/p>\n

However, Mullen’s scam was exposed when she asked the victim for more money.<\/p>\n

The next day, the victim received a call from Kiwi Bank, who confirmed she had been scammed and encouraged her to make a police report.<\/p>\n

She never received the tiny home, nor did she get her money back.<\/p>\n

Police investigated and traced the money through Mullen’s accounts, showing her transferring $1025 into her teen daughter’s account before withdrawing $1850 from an ATM in Enderley.<\/p>\n

The next day, she withdrew $1020 from her daughter’s account.<\/p>\n

When questioned by police, Mullen said she gave her account number to an unknown man “in exchange to get easy money”.<\/p>\n

She admitted receiving the money and withdrawing it, but denied knowing anything about the Facebook ad or how she got the money.<\/p>\n

‘Drugs are a pathway to hell’<\/p>\n

Judge Collin told Mullen that this sort of offending “can’t happen”.<\/p>\n

It was deliberate and involved a breach of trust.<\/p>\n

“People who use websites for buying and selling have to trust that the [item] actually exists, and when they pay their money, they actually get their purchase.<\/p>\n

“When it doesn’t exist, there’s a breach of trust.”<\/p>\n

Like “so many” others who appeared before the court, Mullen had endured a difficult upbringing and “like pretty much everyone else” had difficulties with alcohol and drugs.<\/p>\n

“The use of drugs is really a pathway to hell.<\/p>\n

“It makes life difficult, it leads to criminal offending, and ultimately, if you are not careful, it will lead you to prison.”<\/p>\n

He took a starting point of 11 months’ jail, before adding another two months for her two charges of breaching bail and another month for her criminal history, arriving at 14 months.<\/p>\n

He then took off three months for her guilty pleas, and accepted her letter of remorse as genuine.<\/p>\n

Judge Collin sentenced her to four months’ home detention and ordered her to pay reparation of $3215 at $20 per week.<\/p>\n

After issuing her sentence, Judge Collin had a few more choice words to share with Mullen.<\/p>\n

“You are running close to a term of imprisonment.<\/p>\n

“You need to deal with your drug problem.<\/p>\n

“I see you’ve used almost every drug that possibly can be imagined.”<\/p>\n

He was pleased to see she had been to see Care NZ and urged her to accept all the help that was offered to her.<\/p>\n

*This article was initially published on the NZ Herald<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First published on File image. Hamilton mum Haley Mullen was sentenced to four months’ home detention after defrauding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-195401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}