Woman charged with stealing nearly $10K to purchase 'goods' for Facebook game

ARLINGTON, WASH. --

Usually when people steal money it’s to buy something, and that something is typically real and tangible.

But an Arlington, Wash., woman who has been charged with stealing nearly $10,000 in very real dollars to purchase “goods” for the fantasy homestead game FrontierVille on Facebook.



Rebecca Lynn Riley Terry, 47, was charged with using her employer’s credit card for the game. She faces first-degree theft charges --  a felony -- and is scheduled to appear in court in July.

Terry worked for a Lynnwood insurance company and had access and authorization to use the company’s credit card. Her employer said he discovered she had charged $9,949.20 between June and September 2011 on Facebook.

FrontierVille is similar to Facebook’s FarmVille in that users can build their own “farm” or “frontier home” on the social network. Users can purchase everything from vegetables for the farm to becoming a homeowner on the frontier.

The games let users earn goods by interacting with other players, or they can choose to use real money to purchase artificial coins and goods.

The woman had originally been arrested in October and was released the same day. The Everett Herald reported that at the time of her arrest she had paid back about $800 of the money she had taken.