Suspended from work

A question about : Suspended from work

I work for a supermarket for under 2 years. Today I was suspended due to fraud on my store's loyalty card. The thing is I know customers and colleagues that do it all the time.

We had self scan tills installed a couple of months ago and the trainer told us that no-one will track you if you put the maximum of bags reused when you scan your own shopping. A colleague highlighted this with a question.

So I have been caught doing this about 85% of my transactions since the ss tills went live at my store. Most of these were done in error as I find it difficult to look at the ss tills properly as my eye condition makes the glareiness worse and had an op on the eye as well last month.

I could be sacked for this, even though its very possible its a company wide issue.

I had been made Colleague of the Region last year for excellent customer service and gained several 100% interactions for the mystery shopper.

I was forced to write down names of colleagues that have mentioned or inputted the maximum number of bags reused. I didn't like that as I felt I was grassing up true, loyal friends.

I am not allowed to be in contact with anyone from my store. The store will say to my colleagues that I am off sick. My colleagues know I don't phone up sick willy nilly and be naturally concerned and phone me asking how I am. I will be having to lie to them. It breaks my heart for me not telling my friends what happened. If they did find out, it will break their hearts too. I am suffering alone. I have texted my union rep - also works at the store on checkouts.

I don't want to be dismissed as I am so worried about not getting a job. I have a mortgage and colleagues who have become great friends will feel upset and something will be missing from the team. I can see if I get the sack, some colleagues will be leaving as a protest.

My main concerns are:
. What the training said
. Past achievement
. Lots of people doing this

Best answers:

• I would strongly recommend that you delete this post or severely edit it. There is more than enough information to identify you, and I doubt it will improve matters if your employers find out about it.
  It seems a bit of an OTT reaction, but at a very basic level, this is fraud, so it isn't as if you haven't done anything wrong. How seriously the employer takes it, or whether they will take your mitigation into account isn't something that anyone can tell you, although the union may have a better idea since they will deal with these sorts of things on a regular basis.
  In terms of your friends at work, however, that is very clear. It does not matter whether they contact you or not, you must not speak to them or tell them anything. If you are found to have broken the terms of a suspension that is a separate disciplinary matter and you could easily be dismissed for that.
• Hi .
  I have to say that even before i read SarEL's reply to you , my first thought was "oh my word , theres no way this poster should be giving out so much information on a public forum".
  Im afraid i cant offer you any "legal" advice but the one thing which did jump out when i read your post was that you say you were named colleague of the year last year.......im sorry to tell you this but this fact wont matter a jot !
  Employers wont care about this fact , the way they will see it is if you have commit gross misconduct then you must be disciplined in line with how everyone else should be disciplined .
  My husband was dismissed for gross misconduct exactly one year ago and we have just been to his tribunal....at the tribunal his line manager admitted to the tribunal judge that my husband was the best employee he has EVER had working within the factory , he admitted that he accepts he never has and probably never will employ another worker who can conduct the role my husband held AS WELL as my husband did in his 15 years he was employed with them......
  But the main thing was they concluded that hubby had commited gross misconduct and he was out the door !
  Edit your post to take out identifying details (where you work for starters!) and hopefully some others will be along to offer advice.
  I hope things work out for you.
• Jumpycheese can i just ask where does your points card come into this, maybe you have said but the post was long and my eyes started to hurt
  id edit your post to be on the safe side
  re the customers doing what you did, well they could take the points away from them but how would they trace these customers who did so would they do a transaction search for shopping that was only a few items but pressed 9 for reused bags
  it is a sackable offence if you use your own card to credit yourself the points form other peoples shopping when the customer says they dotn have a nectar card, i was an employee and saw 2 girls get the sack for this and the police may have been called but not certain as it was 5 years ago
• Speak to your Union Rep, build a case and present it at your meeting.
  But as above, remove the employer, time at the job, awards etc as it wouldn't exactly take a genius to work out who you are.
  Maybe a moderator/admin person could do it.
• I have edited the post and removed names.
• You've done wrong unfortunately, so think you can be done for gross misconduct. On another note, you're very modest.
• As above have said remove employers name and use "loyalty card". You will be suprised how much information can be gleaned from modern epos systems. The system has probably flagged up high bag re use, someone has looked into it and staff purchases show up easily. You are probably the first on a long list being looked at.
  As for past record I remember a young guy who was promoted very quickly to dep manager and was on fast track for manager, area manager's blue eyed boy ........ until he got the sack for refund fraud. Nothing counts when you have screwed up. As for the training issue, what training issue, you were told the machines would accept 9 bags without question. This was a limitation within the system, you were not told it was a free for all to commit fraud.
• Dont use your eyes as an excuse, 'most of them were done in error'
  Dont treat people as idiots, if you try to use this as an excuse it will go down badly, so just don't
  Be honest, you are clutching at straws.
• As I need to do some shopping between now and Thursday - not at my store. I will produce receipts at the investigation to prove that I shopped at these stores and look no rebag reused points (unless I go through a manned till)