A North Carolina travel agent, Barbara Herrington, pleaded guilty in a Maryland county court to credit card fraud, identity fraud and a theft scheme associated with Hawaii trips that did not materialize.

The agent’s scam cost Norwegian Cruise Line $512,000 in unearned commissions and credit card chargebacks. Blue Sky Tours, a New Mexico-based ground operator lost $70,000 in chargebacks. Losses to consumers are unmeasured.

Herrington, who operated Southern Travel in Mooresville, N.C., was sentenced to eight years in the Carroll County Detention Center, but most of the sentence was suspended, leaving her with up to 18 months to serve. Time served from last August counts toward the total, according to Melissa Hockensmith, the deputy state attorney in Maryland’s Carroll County.

Hockensmith said Herrington’s fraud extended into several Maryland counties and to points up and down the East Coast. However, the Maryland case only dealt with the 38 customers in Carroll County who booked trips for themselves and others because only Carroll County pursued a criminal case. In one instance, Hockensmith added, a Carroll County customer had booked a group of 85.

At the time of her arrest early last year, Herrington was accused of stealing almost $200,000 from Carroll County consumers. Most were able to recover their losses, Hockensmith said, through credit card chargebacks to suppliers.

Also, the court ordered Herrington to make restitution of more than $8,000 to Carroll County consumers who wrote checks to Southern Travel, as well as $25,000 each to NCL and Blue Sky Tours.

At issue in this case was a seven-day trip that included air-land arrangements in Hawaii and a cruise on NCL's Pride of Hawaii, which Herrington sold for $1,025 in 2006. A few customers paid by check, but Herrington also collected commissions from NCL based on the large number of cabins booked.

According to Hockensmith’s statement of facts presented to the court at sentencing, NCL canceled the customers’ cruises due to nonpayment.

According to the same statement, Blue Sky Tours found that none of the Carroll County customers’ ground tours was ever booked, but that every Herrington booking with Blue Sky made between May and August of 2006 involved the use of a credit card number that did not belong to the booked travelers. According to investigators, Herrington also used victims’ credit cards for other purchases, such as NASCAR tickets.

NCL told Carroll County investigators that Herrington’s operation became the biggest scam in its history.

Herrington’s run-in with Maryland law enforcement is the latest in a series, according to Lt. Joseph Cooke in the Mooresville Police Department. He said she was arrested several times in North Carolina in 2006 and 2007 and charged with various offenses that involved credit card fraud, identity fraud and passing bad checks.

He said there were hundreds of victims, and they included many of the cruise lines -- because of countless credit card chargebacks and the like -- as well as travelers. He said Herrington had obtained plea agreements on some charges, but North Carolina eventually obtained an agreement from Herrington to cease doing business in the state, Cooke said.

Meanwhile, Herrington had moved on to Michigan before surrendering to Maryland authorities. In Michigan, she opened a now-failed bridal shop using the name Barbara Littlefield.