Think that there is little to be gained by manipulating a program that collects and tracks tips for employees in a restaurant? Well, three people have been charged with theft of nearly a half million dollars of pilfered tips from a Denny’s restaurant in Kamloops over a three-year span.
Since employees would be alerted if they received no payout of tips after working for a period of time in such a situation, it appears that those workers were seeing at least a few tips being paid to them. Yet, still, the lawsuit against the three claims $505,000 was stolen since 2023.
Then there is the the case of an employee of a First Nation in Millbrook, near Truro. The woman involved has been convicted of defrauding her band of $4.3 million over a four year period. And she wasn’t the CFO or even the primary accountant.She was a financial clerk, and still managed to conceal her thefts for many years.
Last in this list, but still only one of hundreds of cases occurring daily, was a plumbing company employee who used company credit cards for personal purchases to the tune of $75,000.
These three cases show how easy and how prevalent theft from the workplace is with the use of modern technology and software. The answer is simple: increased vigilance. Yet, less than 3% of small businesses have quality fraud and theft deterrence strategies in place.
It reminds me of the old Fram oil filter: You can pay for it now, or pay for it later. But later costs a lot more!
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