Posting items from work - not recommended MoneySaving...

rare_stuff

Plenty there poppy about his family being victims, but little about the company being victims or even his ebay competitors due to the unfair postal advantage he had. The guy had it coming to him if he was so dumb as to post that amount of mail from work and not declare it. He may well of become a model employee on the threat of being sacked, but this is no deterant to anyone, and it's likely that he was also using work time to run his ebay account and answer quiries, send invoices, post items. It would be interesting to know if his computer usage was audited and accounted for. The person I worked with that got rightly dismissed for gross misconduct racked up an average of 10hours a week online on sites that were not relevant to his duties, that's over 1/4th of his working week! Not all companies have such internet usage records, or even investigate them in such cases.

Poppy9

rare_stuff wrote: »

Plenty there poppy about his family being victims, but little about the company being victims or even his ebay competitors due to the unfair postal advantage he had. [/quote[ I'm not condoning what he did and for some reason I feel little sympathy for ebay sellers. The business, well that depends on how they were managing their company. If they are a large organisation I would expect them to have controls in place to detect such activity sooner. They sound a large organisation if they employer a dedicated auditor(s). If they were a small business where it's hard to have division of duties and "trust" is a much bigger part of the business then of course I feel sorry for them but when OH ran his own business he made sure he knew what was going on!

rare_stuff wrote:

The guy had it coming to him if he was so dumb as to post that amount of mail from work and not declare it.

and boy did he get it! We don't know the man, we don't know what drove him to it. How long had he been employed by the company, how long had this activity been going on. Was it out of character for him?

rare_stuff wrote:

and it's likely that he was also using work time to run his ebay account and answer quiries, send invoices, post items.

now you are jumping to conclusions! OP said he wasn't mailing them out in work.

rare_stuff wrote:

It would be interesting to know if his computer usage was audited and accounted for. The person I worked with that got rightly dismissed for gross misconduct racked up an average of 10hours a week online on sites that were not relevant to his duties, that's over 1/4th of his working week! Not all companies have such internet usage records, or even investigate them in such cases.

We've had a few dismissals & disciplinaries for internet misuse. Some racked up a lot more than 10 hours a week:eek:

Perhaps the reason I feel sympathy is I know that people can act out of character in work for reasons outside of work. They seem to lose the ability to think straight, they take chances they wouldn't take or they just don't seem to care. Was this out of character for the chap, we don't know. Was it so obvious that he knew he would get caught and a cry for help? We don't know. Had his job changed lately, was he angry/aggrieved at his employers? Had he been getting "away with it" for years? What I do know is that 2 men I worked with committed suicide due to stress. Totally out of character for them and they knew it would devastate their young children and I know if they had been 100% they would not even have considered it. Rational thinking obviously went out the of the window as they both planned it. Did we, their work colleagues, miss their cries for help? Were we too busy getting on with our own jobs? Should we even care how our colleagues are feeling as we not paid to do that?

rare_stuff

OK, I agree that his treatment was harsh, but without knowing the ins & outs, I believe it was just and proportionate, he should consider himself lucky that he wasn't prosecuted though. Without looking into his background we will not know whether there was any 'justification' for his theft, though most crimes can be justified in someway or other by the offender this doesn't make them excusable and we can only trust that the company acted proportionally, and did look into personal circumstances before making their decision or they would be leaving themselves open to claims of unfair or contributed dismissal.

Stress indeed could have been a factor, though it is hoped that most large companies like this would have had appropriate management to notice this and act upon it, I'm speaking as someone who was supported by my employer through a period of stress that saw me on the sick for 6months and failed to complete a phased return to work. Though I must say that most common thievery is unlikely to be caused by stress, it is caused by greed, regular supervision would have spotted stress, though not necessarily greed. I also imagine their supervisor has received somewhat of a slapped wrist as a result as they do bear a certain degree of responsibility for not having spotted this earlier.

How often do you think a company, whatever it's size should audit for theft? daily, weekly, monthly, every 3 months? As the company was of a size where these audits are carried out by a professional team every 3 months I think that is a reasonable period, and that auditors are usually quite good at working out how often to audit various expenditures, afterall that is their business.

for some reason I feel little sympathy for ebay sellers.

So you'll feel sympathy for someone in employment suffering from stress, but the self-employed running their own business struggling to remain competitive when their competitors are stealing to fund their business is fine? As a self-employed person I do not have the luxury of support/counselling/sick pay along with many other owner/operator businesses on ebay, yet I do suffer from stress as a result of having to compete against people who are stealing postage to be able to price lower than my profit levels.

It's quite clear that your sympathy lies with the perpetrator even without knowing the details of the facts. Whilst I'm quite happy knowing a criminal has been caught and punished for their actions. I will agree that their are various shades of grey in this situation, but to me the facts as presented are quite black and white.

carolinosourus

Poppy9: Theft (and possibly tax evasion too*) = prison

He got off lightly

Would it have been better for his family if the company had pressed charges? The case would have probably been all over the local and possibly national news, can you imagine the shame on his family? He would find it even harder to get a job once prospective employers discover his criminal record!

Also according to the OP he had been using an awful lot of petrol for a diesel car... Don't abuse the benefits that you are given and you'll be ok. I just can't believe that he appeared to think that stealing £600 wasn't a sackable offence and that it was ok to carry on doing it. It shows an awful lot of arrogance on the part of the ex-employee.

*judging by the amount of ebay sales he must have been making to warrant that amount of postage

greenstreetprince

Poppy9 wrote: »

If I was the person sacking him I would feel dreadful about how his family are going to suffer and it would play on my mind for months.

you keep jumping to the conclusion that this chaps family only had his job to feed on! How on earth do you know that nobody else in his family is employed?

the way i see it, with the amount he has spent on postage (rather got his ex-employers to do it for him!) he's got alot of money coming in, and his ex-employers have given him the opportunity to spend more time on his ebay business!

if the family have suffered then maybe they should get off their backsides and starting using their hands and feet to good affect rather than screw the benefits system.

POSSETTE

was he paying tax on his enay income??
prob not...

I understand where POPPY is coming from but i agree with the original poster.

If POPPY's house was burgled and family beaten up..would they still feel sorry for the perpetrators family if HE got locked up??

Time2Go_25

I'm not quite sure you can equate using office postal services to robbery with violence.

Sure they guy was wrong, don't think anyone disagrees with that, I'm sure £600 is small change to a multi-national company, I wonder what their turnover is.

I wonder how many people who are condeming him have taken a sick day when really they could have gone in, for many firms that could well cost them more than £600 in lost earnings. How many people have used pens, paper, telephone etc. for their own use, I know it's not £600 but surely theft is theft.

How many people have been given the wrong amount of change and just stuck it in their pocket, got on a train and not paid, lied about their childrens ages to get reduced entrance fees etc. etc.

So to all who are being judge, jury and executioner here then perhaps you could examine your own past dealings to see if you are really whiter than white.

frivolous_fay

Not all companies pay if you take a day off sick...

rare_stuff

frivolous_fay wrote: »

Not all companies pay if you take a day off sick...

And if everyone who worked stole £600 of postage every few months I'm sure businesses would either soon go bust or be cutting back on wages or/and staff as a result.

Equating company turnover to right & wrongs of robbing £600 of postage is surely an invalid point. Companies with large turnovers usually have a high number of staff. If every staff member was pocketing £600 of company assets every few months I'm sure this would be enough to lead to mass redundancy or even receivership for the company.