what are some possibilities that a company will get robbed by its own employee?

Question

i'm a romance writer and i want help regarding that problem. in my novel, there's somebody's robbing the company. the CEO thinks the robber is just one of his employees. HOW OR IN WHAT MANNER CAN AN EMPLOYEE DO THAT?

Answer 1

If the robber is the bookeeper they can send the money to fake businesses for fake bills that are their friends, or that they really own (that has actually happened before). Also heard of one where a store had 9 cash registers but only were 8 in the original floor plan so the money handlers only expected 8 tapes. The floor manager only ran the 9th cash register an hour a week or so and just kept the money put into that drawer. Of course people who are paid with cash can simply put the cash in their pockets and not ring up the purchase - but this gets to be a problem if the customer wants a receipt. There was another where a supervisor rarely called in when his employees were sick. Everyone was paid in cash and since the accounting dept didn't know anyone was sick they paid full wages. He gave the employees what they worked and kept the difference (ie they worked 3 days and were sick 2. the supervisor never called in the 2 sick days so they were paid for 5 days. the supervisor gave them pay for the 3 days they did work and kept the pay for the two days they were sick - which he never called in).

I'm not sure if its a good thing that I know that much about how to steal from an employer - but I never have myself.

Answer 2

You have been given some good ideas here. Employee theft is fairly common, and companies often view it as a cost of doing business if it is not excessive. Large thefts also take place, and they can cause serious problems. There are many methods used.

A janitor once had to repair a lighting fixture in his broom closet where he ate his lunch, and upon opening the ceiling found the pneumatic tubes running above the ceiling tiles. he tapped into the tubes and during lunch would intercept money coming from the sales floor and would send back receipts as if they were coming form the cashier's office. This happened during lunch hour when the store was particularly busy, so it was not noticed by either end of the process because a lot of the tubes went through normally. To the store it appeared that someone was stealing the merchandise, when in fact the janitor was selling the store's merchandise to the store's customers. The company spent a lot of money on security systems trying to get the merchandise thefts reduced, with no luck, until the janitor got sick and someone found his setup during his absence.

There are many similar tales of ingenious ways to steal from the employer. Don't be afraid to invent your own for the novel.

Answer 3

Every company is robbed by employees at some point weather it is just a hand full of paper clips or inventory walking away. Even if they don't take things people steal company time or use company equipment for personal reasons. Walking away with cash is a little harder but turning in expenses that didn't happen or embezzlements aren't that rare.

Edit:
I am a bookkeeper and it would be simple to steal the money. I deal with huge dollar amounts and I have a degree in accounting and know how to steal but don't. I have written huge checks to a bank and the signer signs them and gives them back to me to mail. This can be up to about a million at a time. I tell them don't do that, I could just take the check and deposit it in my bank account opening one at that bank. I won't because I have a home and lots of equity and wouldn't want to run away and I have ethics but it would be easy. I reconcile the bank accounts and write the checks, I know and they know that is a bad idea but they were so far behind and I do it daily. I told them they could get someone else to do it too but I really need to know how much money we have.
I have seen bookkeepers on drugs with no ethics and no life willing to steal. One had a careless boss who let her do everything, he signed whatever checks she wrote. She gave payroll advances to herself, her mom, her boyfriend and her mom's boyfriend and never deducted them from the paychecks.

Answer 4

Most large corporations loose more to their employees than to actual theft and it is really b/c the employees know the tricks not to get caught. I managed at Wal-Mart for seven years and our loss prevention had to keep just as close an on our employees as our customers b/c statistics where like 37% of our profit loss was our employess.

Answer 5

I need an update on this.... what type of company. Ive owned many and I have always been robbed by an employee.