Accused of Stealing Money at Work

Muscle750 · 7 January 2018 at 3:14PM

Unless they got proof ie CCTV or such i reckon they cant do anything apart from hoping you will resign . Ask them for proof otherwise you will contest it to what ever level deemed necessary believe me when you got wannabe managers trying stir the preverbial and make a name for themselves they suddenly realise you can do them far more damage than they can do to you. Years ago we were all accused of stealing parts a few weeks later one evening someone caught a employee outside at 10 pm with his car boot open his wife used to do the office cleaning so he had access to set of keys. Inside his car boot was items he should not have had boxes with Job numbers on etc with parts in. The following day two of us confronted and informed the manager what was seen the previous evening. He then shut the door and told us nothing to do with us and mind our own even thou we had been accused prior . It transpired that the manager was in on it and they were sharing the sale proceeds needless to sway neither of them lasted.

MrNiceGuy_007 · 7 January 2018 at 4:19PM

Muscle750 wrote: »

It transpired that the manager was in on it and they were sharing the sale proceeds needless to sway neither of them lasted.

That is exactly how my wife situation looks and feels. Thank-you for sharing your experience.

custardy · 7 January 2018 at 4:44PM

A statement from another member of staff (below) has been posted to the house, and a disciplinary hearing date next week. On the letter, it says she is allowed to take a union representative or a CompanyX employee. However, further down the page, it says this case cannot be discussed with any other other CompanyX employees??? She is not part of the union so who can help represent her case?

your wife can take a fellow employee,who will obviously be privvy to the case.
The point of not discussing it relates to with staff in general.

TBH I think the only way to approach it is no idea where the money is.

confident correct change was given
Didnt take the money

Pushing back

multiple people using the till,both before and after your wifes shift
No cashing up/checking procedure between people using the tills
No record of cash in the till when your wife took over

Sadly I dont see much you can do beyond this.

MrNiceGuy_007 · 7 January 2018 at 4:50PM

PrettyKittyKat wrote: »

is no CCTV over the till?

Apparently, there is no CCTV over the tills or in the cashing up office, which I find completely bizarre

PrettyKittyKat wrote: »

How often does your partner work? Could she ask for the cash figures on the till she has worked the shifts four weeks prior to this maybe?
Has your wife seen copies all transactions on the till that day (including any she did not do)? If not, ask if these can be sent and consider the below...

It varies, the shift pattern is not consistent.

Not sure if they will provide four weeks but I can ask. We will certainly ask for a copy of transactions on that till for the entire day. If any fall outside my wife's shift this will help defend her case.

PrettyKittyKat wrote: »

I think from your replies your partner has already seen the list of all staff codes signed in on that till on the day, but if she hasn't I would request this also.

Yes, but they do not show exact times when people were signed in. I guess the transactions will complement this.

Someone else mentioned about requesting information from the very beginning not months later. We did try too but we have been ignored up to this point.

The day after my wife was suspended we asked the store manager Dasiy Duck to provide her and HR's email address, we received back a Gmail address which was not even real! So my wife then asked again and we only received "dasiy.duck@companyx.co.uk", still no HR email. There was no email address in the employment contract and no handbook provided. Tried contacting the area manager and got no response.

A week later we received a letter from HR about the suspension which did have an email. We then started to send emails requesting stuff. Still, we have received nothing back.

My wife has been told not to contact anyone from the store or attend any of the CompanyX's premises. However, Dasiy Duck keeps sending social type messages to my wife on Facebook, which she ignores.

Snipping from Dasiy Duck statement
"I believe that the money was stolen by Mini Mouse"

Given that statement, Dasiy Duck is directly involved and trying contact via Facebook is very unprofessional.

Muscle750 · 7 January 2018 at 5:10PM

All sounds very familar when we asked for head of HR email i got from the manager its confidential and i cant give you it within 30 secs i stood in front of them and got it straight of the company website and showed them what it was in case they couldnt access it. Plus the wages were always wrong so we started taking pics of the comp screen at end of week on our phone so we had proof. I had WW3 one day with one manger over the wages totally adament they were right and threatened me with HR as my attitude etc I proceeded to get my ipad showed them the screen images and its "Oh Oh Oh i see where ive gone wrong............" still took me 3 months to get what i was owed thou

Nothanks · 7 January 2018 at 5:28PM

Muscle750 wrote: »

Unless they got proof ie CCTV or such i reckon they cant do anything apart from hoping you will resign . Ask them for proof otherwise you will contest it to what ever level deemed necessary.

Sorry but I think this isn't great advice.

Your employer doesn't have to prove anything, they just have to evidence that they investigated thoroughly and fairly to form a reasonable belief.

Also with sub two years service, threatening to contest it isn't really a threat as you have no recourse to unfair dismissal. Unless you're claiming discrimination or whistleblowing.

Best to focus on the facts and the investigation. Fact - logged on at x, logged off at y. Etc.

Also politely question the investigation - how many of the tills transactions were while you were on shift? 20%? 50%? Were there any unusual or large transactions, have they reconciled the card receipts to identify cash transactions etc etc

I don't want to be pessimistic about the situation or put you off, but there's a high chance of dismissal here.

flowrypot · 7 January 2018 at 5:41PM

https://www.gov.uk/disciplinary-procedures-and-action-at-work

ohreally · 7 January 2018 at 6:56PM

MrNiceGuy_007 wrote: »

However, further down the page, it says this case cannot be discussed with any other other CompanyX employees??? She is not part of the union so who can help represent her case?

If she wishes a colleague companion then she contacts HR to inform them of her intention or she may be looking at an additional disciplinary being convened.

mac.d · 7 January 2018 at 8:02PM

ohreally wrote: »

If she wishes a colleague companion then she contacts HR to inform them of her intention or she may be looking at an additional disciplinary being convened.

This happened with an employer I worked with. Person A (who wasn't in a union) was suspended while an investigation was ongoing, they had no contact with any colleagues, due to similar stipulations outlined in the OP's case, and Person B got a request via HR to attend the investigation interview as Person A's fellow employee. Person B turned down the request though, so be careful who you ask.

stuartJo1989 · 7 January 2018 at 8:23PM

Have to say but I agree with the amount being an odd amount to steal! That was my first thought. That being said, a level 2 thief (someone who thinks about it in more depth) may well steal an odd amount to make it look less obvious. So I think that's a moot argument despite the logic behind it.

I've only ever been "accused" of stealing once, and it was very short-lived as the manager sided with me (some girl took over my till but she needed to use it before I could cash up. In the space of about 10 minutes she had lifted £60). I ended up giving her a hard time all shift because I knew it was her and in the end she cracked. I found the £60 dumped on the pavement outside work when she got a taxi home :rotfl: It did look dodgy that I found it though, but the manager was cool with it.

But sorry, that's not really helpful in your situation other than to sympathise with your situation of being accused of stealing when you didn't do it.

Accused of Stealing Money at Work

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