Berlin, Aug 28: A court in Berlin sentenced an obsessive shopper to seven-and-a-half years in prison after he admitted stealing around $270,000 to satisfy his craving for customer service, authorities say. The court tried the 38-year-old on some 468 counts of fraud and forgery after the three-year shopping spree financed by stolen bank and credit cards ended in his arrest.
"The man said he wasn't interested in the money," Berlin court spokesman Bjoern Retzlaff said Wednesday. "He said he just couldn't get enough of being waited on in shops. To him, it was all about the feeling that the customer is king."
Many purchased items found at the man's home, which included 200 pairs of shoes, had never been opened, the court said.
"What am I supposed to do with 200 pairs of shoes?" Germany's Bild Zeitung reported him as saying. "Back at home in the shopping bag they meant nothing to me. But I couldn't stop!"

Bureau Report