Advice about tricky work situation.

ladyandthetramp

Hi all,

Been racking my brains all afternoon wondering what is the best thing to do so thought I would get a general consensus on here, here is the story:

I work part time, self employed (but for a company, not my own!) in a situation where I collect money, cash to be precise. Now I usually work during the week but made an exception today to get one of my customers money, I got home a couple of hours ago and realised one of the notes she has given me is a fake £20 (quite obviously now looking at it)

Now the company I work for has very strict rules regarding this type of thing, I am supposed to not tell anyone and go straight to a special bloke within the company (I have never met him, and its a large company) now if I do this I am concerned I may loose this customer (who is a VERY good customer) which in turn will effect my wages, and if I don't tell anyone well then it will have to be replaced by my own money which I don't really want to do either.

Catch 22 for me really and I am pretty sure she knew what she was doing too as its so obvious when you compare it to other notes, but would flat out deny it if I asked her.

What would you do?

Sambucus_Nigra

Ask her for a proper £20 note?

ladyandthetramp

I have no way of proving it came from her though (my word against hers although it 100% did), and I wouldn't want cross words if I accused her.

I guess she is worth more than the £20 so will chalk it up to experience, just gotta decide if I report it or not, not sure what they will do with the knowledge that's all, wouldn't want the poo to hit the fan and loose her as a customer if she got investigated or something.

Thanks for the replies

princessdon

I would suggest it is your job to check before accepting payment - The fact that you noticed this late is really your responsbility, if you had checked before leaving her home/premises you could have handled it differently.

ladyandthetramp

To above - yep, wont be making that mistake again, thing is I have over 3 years experience in this job and literally collected hundreds of thousands, and never had a duff, so kind of never expected one.

SHADO

What you could do is go back to her, taking the fake £20 note with you, and point out the fact that when you got home you noticed that one of the £20 notes was a fake (and maybe show her) and that you usually only work during the week and today's collection was an exception and the only one you made, therefore it could not have been given to you by anyone else.

You could then say that you thought you would make her aware of it because somebody had obviously given HER the fake £20 note. This way you are not accusing her of deliberately knowing, you are just making her aware in a friendly way.

I don't know what her financial situation is but she will do one of two things, she will either apologise and replace the £20 note with hopefully a real one, or thank you for pointing this out to her and say that she is not in a position to replace it herself.

At the end of the day, I don't think she will try and pass you another fake note in the future, if she did indeed do it deliberately on this occasion.

I know it is no consolation but I think you will just have to put this down to experience and replace the note yourself, just make sure you check all notes you receive in the future before you leave the premises.

I hope this helps and good luck with whatever you decide.

kerrypn

No I was wrong lol

u751904

well I thought you could take fake notes like this into a bank and they'd swap it for a good one. I could be wrong. If this is the case then I'd do this and obviously provide your employer with a valid note. You could simply try and use it in a store etc but I am not sure how you'd feel about putting it back into circulation.. there are apparently a lot of fake notes around.

MissSarah1972

u751904 wrote: »

well I thought you could take fake notes like this into a bank and they'd swap it for a good one. I could be wrong. If this is the case then I'd do this and obviously provide your employer with a valid note. You could simply try and use it in a store etc but I am not sure how you'd feel about putting it back into circulation.. there are apparently a lot of fake notes around.

You can not take a fake note to a bank to swap, as it's FAKE. We could all print our own fake notes and then be very well off if this was the case!

In fact you can be arrested for just having it!

whitewing

I think you should abide by company rules. It is obviously something that happens occasionally if they have nominated someone to deal with it.

maninthestreet

Buy one of those pens that can be used to check for fake notes.