minoanmiss: Minoan girl lineart by me (Minoan chippie)
minoanmiss ([personal profile] minoanmiss) wrote in [community profile] agonyaunt2021-10-14 12:43 pm

Ask a Manager: My Employee Fell For A Scam


2. My employee fell for a scam

I run a small retail business and while I was out this afternoon, someone came in and scammed one of my employees into giving him $300 in cash from the register. He told my employee that I was buying some furniture from him and we had spoken about, so she handed him the cash, then realized what she’d done and called me.

How do I proceed from here? I know that confidence tricksters are professionals, but handing over $300 without checking with the boss — I’m good at telling my team when changes are happening and would never ask anyone other than me to pay someone — seems like a big lapse in judgment. That is not an insignificant sum to the business — it’s an average day’s takings.

Any advice on how to handle this with this employee would be appreciated.


The business should cover the expense, just like you would if she made a totally different type of error in her work that cost you money. Absorbing the cost of errors is part of the cost of doing business. You shouldn’t ask an employee to pay for something that happened while they were performing their job in good faith.

But take this as impetus to train all your staff on spotting scams and handling similar situations that could come up in the future.
melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)

[personal profile] melannen 2021-10-14 05:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Everything else aside, if your response to an employee fucking up, realizing it almost immediately, and then calling the boss to let them know is to fire them for it, then what you will be getting is a bunch of mistakes that happen without you ever knowing about it until they have snowballed into something huge.

The giving up $300 was a lapse in judgement; the calling you right away was both good judgement & evidence that the employee has some loyalty to you. Don't waste those!
jamoche: Prisoner's pennyfarthing bicycle: I am NaN (Default)

[personal profile] jamoche 2021-10-14 10:06 pm (UTC)(link)
"Why should I fire you, I just spent $300 on your training?"
tielan: (don't make me shoot you)

[personal profile] tielan 2021-10-14 10:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I recall an anecdote about a programmer who fucked something up in his company to the tune of $10m, couldn't fix the issue, that $10m was gone.

Management calls him in, sits him down, he already has his resignation letter. Management tears it up: "We just invested $10m into your education; you're not leaving us now."

Anecdotal, but the lesson is pertinent. This was $300 invested into an education for all the staff - and the business owner.
torachan: (Default)

[personal profile] torachan 2021-10-15 07:17 am (UTC)(link)
Write them up and keep an eye on them. Some people never learn no matter how many times they make stupid mistakes, but hopefully this employee won't let that sort of thing happen again. (But in case they are the type who never learns to be more careful, they for sure need a written warning.)
mommy: Wanda Maximoff; Scarlet Witch (Default)

[personal profile] mommy 2021-10-15 10:25 am (UTC)(link)
Does this business have a history of paying for things in cash taken directly from the register? If yes, then the employee was just complying with the store practices as they were taught.
ioplokon: purple cloth (Default)

[personal profile] ioplokon 2021-10-15 01:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Also, don't keep $300 in the register??? Esp if it's ~ a day's takings? Drop some at the bank at lunch so there's not that much cash available. You only need enough in there to be able to reasonably make change.
thedivinegoat: Glass Balls (My Photo - Balls)

[personal profile] thedivinegoat 2021-10-15 05:48 pm (UTC)(link)
So in the late 80s, when he was 17 my husband worked for a Merchant bank in London as an IT trainee. On his second week he was left over night on the nightshift on his own. One of the jobs he had was to dismount one of the drives that the previous days trading had been recorded on. Only the drive he dismounted was the still spinning drive that THAT days trading was been written to. They lost all of that days trading. Millions of pounds lost.

It was found not to be his fault as he'd not had sufficient training, (I believe someone further up the chain lost their job though) got thrown onto lots of courses, and within 6 months had been promoted.

Mistakes happen, but if someone hasn't had the training it is doubly not their fault.