My employer is accusing me of fraud as he is retaliating me of raising whistleblowing

marybelle01

ohreally wrote: »

Terrified - I may be misunderstanding but this isn't what the law refers to a whistleblowing. You appear to have raised an internal complaint???

You refer to investigating, were you part of an investigatery panel looking into the afairs of another employee following a previous complaint?
If so were you then coerced into fabricating statements?


I suspect the time is upon you to move on to another job, sooner rather than later.

I think I would go further. Not only has the OP not done anything that constitutes whistleblowing - or in fact an internal complaint it would seem, but what actual evidence does the OP have of being coerced into falsifying the issues that they investigated? Written instructions from the manager telling them to do this? I do hope so - because without that, the only evidence of anyone falsifying the investigations lies with the OP.

If the OP has such evidence, then it seems that the most obvious thing to do is to blow the whistle on what has been happening. Surely the entire of the management of the company cannot be in on it? Although I think that some posters have a valid concern as to whether the OP is capable of sustaining such a move on their part. But if they have no such evidence, or cannot sustain a fight even with it, move on.

maninthestreet

OP - to be blunt, your manager is bull-sh*tting you - he would have sacked you a long time ago for failing to attend muliple disciplinary hearings, not make threats about going to the police.

Treehugged

OP, at the very least he sounds unprofessional. I know it's tough out there but you may as well use your energy for more positive things such as looking for another job. Suffice to say don't use him as a referee as you won't get it.

Also, it's sometimes best to keep your head down and get on with your work and leave those who have the stomach for it, to point out the bosses faults.

Smi1er

Make sure any meeting is recorded. Remember that you can't use the recording as any form of evidence although you can use a transcript of it.

Remain calm during the meeting.

Come back and report after the meeting as to what was said.

prowla

Surely disciplinary meeting should be handled by HR.

Terrified

Thank you all for your kinds words and I appreciate all the feedback. I will fight for my rights but I am just saddened that my manager would accuse me of fraud on my salary increment letter which he signed back in January and he brings it up now saying he knew about it from January. But of course, I did not fabricate my own salary increment letter. He is just upset that I did not support him on those whistleblowing cases by agreeing with him on the outcome knowing that the outcome he wanted me to agree is not in accordance. I did speak to those whistleblowers and told them I sympathise with them a lot as it was not their fault that my manager decided to make excuses to make them redundant. I agree that sometimes I should keep my head down and not voice my opinion but sometimes when I see others hurt at work, I feel for them. Going back to the point where my manager is accusing me of fraud on my salary increment letter, how do I proof myself as there is nothing I can proof with. My manager signed the letter and gave it to me so what else am I supposed to prove. I just don't know. With the ruthless way he has dealt with past employees, I know he won't leave me alone. His style is to make those employees that he doesnt like, to make their lives miserable. Those who have gone through this before left that way. I am not worried but the only thing I worry is spending too much time on this and thus not being able to look for another job. I need to also think of what reasons I give at interviews. Unless this whole eposide is completed, I don't think I can resign, can I? If I resign now, wouldn't it show I am a coward or I am at fault? I may be a coward but definitely I am not at fault as I have done nothing wrong, i.e. I did not fraud my increment letter. Maybe I am at fault only at helping other employees voice their concerns during whistleblowing cases. Can someone please help me?

Evilm

Right. Calm. Down. Also use paragraphs and take a deep breath.

As for your own "fraud".

- Your manager's signature is on the letter. He is claiming you faked that?
- The letter doesn't actually do anything as far as HR is concerned? Most companies have an internal process and just seeing a copy letter saying "X your salary is now £Y" with a signature on it doesn't usually pass muster.
- So therefore there must be other documentation to HR about your salary increase.
- I assume you also started getting paid this extra money and have no involvement in that transaction directly?

Stop panicking about being 'locked up' and not being allowed to make phone calls. Police will want something a little more solid to work with.

You can resign right now. It doesn't stop them putting on a reference that you resigned under suspicion of fraud. Not listing them as a reference may not stop people contacting them or being asked to provide their details anyway.

Have you spoken to HR at all? Forget how important this guy is, sit down with HR and ask them about this stuff (calmly). Mention the fact that the letters have the wrong address on. Mention that you were not involved with faking a payrise letter and your payrise was legitimately given to you by your manager. Ask them where this matter currently stands and that you want to move forward to putting everything on the table and get it cleared up right now.

However leave the 'wall of text' panic at home. Be calm, be positive and make it clear you want to sort this out.

I haven't read all of your walls of text above but its possible HR don't know what is happening here and the manager is hoping he is enough of a wall to stop you finding that out.

Any

Evilm wrote: »

Right. Calm. Down. Also use paragraphs and take a deep breath.

As for your own "fraud".

- Your manager's signature is on the letter. He is claiming you faked that?
- The letter doesn't actually do anything as far as HR is concerned? Most companies have an internal process and just seeing a copy letter saying "X your salary is now £Y" with a signature on it doesn't usually pass muster.
- So therefore there must be other documentation to HR about your salary increase.
- I assume you also started getting paid this extra money and have no involvement in that transaction directly?

Stop panicking about being 'locked up' and not being allowed to make phone calls. Police will want something a little more solid to work with.

You can resign right now. It doesn't stop them putting on a reference that you resigned under suspicion of fraud. Not listing them as a reference may not stop people contacting them or being asked to provide their details anyway.

Have you spoken to HR at all? Forget how important this guy is, sit down with HR and ask them about this stuff (calmly). Mention the fact that the letters have the wrong address on. Mention that you were not involved with faking a payrise letter and your payrise was legitimately given to you by your manager. Ask them where this matter currently stands and that you want to move forward to putting everything on the table and get it cleared up right now.

However leave the 'wall of text' panic at home. Be calm, be positive and make it clear you want to sort this out.

I haven't read all of your walls of text above but its possible HR don't know what is happening here and the manager is hoping he is enough of a wall to stop you finding that out.

EXACTLY this!!^^^

Terrified

Thank you Evilm. Appreciate your response.

I have spoken to HR but they are not helpful as they are themselves scared of this manager but do not want to say anything as it could affect their jobs. We all know how difficult it is to find jobs outside.

The increment letter was signed by the manager and I know the manager has a document that shows all the increases he gave to his employees. Now, he claims that overall document showed that I was not entitled to any increments. I don't have that overall document as it belongs to my manager. I was not involved in the transaction. I did not transact the amount into my account as I don't work in payroll or in finance. I happily got the increment in January and nothing happened after that. It was after I raised concerns about how he was continuously treating other employees unfairly based on their whistleblowing and grievance and I said humans should behave as humans and we should be fair to everyone. At that point, he started accusing me. My manager got the company lawyer to send me so many letters and I had to get my lawyer to send back the letters. It has cost me a lot. I am sure my manager must be laughing a lot now knowing the state of mind I would be in. I just want a decent job. Why is he accusing me? If he wants to terminate me, he can easily treat me bad and I would then force myself to resign. Why put me through these false accusation? I just cannot read his mind on why he is doing it.

Was I wrong in discussing all the grievances with him? Was I wrong in telling him how I really felt? Was I wrong to say the truth?

There are employees in the company who are supporting me mentally but of course, they will not support me physically by going against my manager. I understand why and it is because they don't want to end up like me in this situation.

I am so heartbroken as I dont want to leave the company. I love the company and the employees there.

Do you think I can fix the problem and stay back at the job? Probably not and probably I am just asking myself this stupid question which I know will not happen.

Terrified

Thank you, Any.