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Falling for online scam

Jenny

| 0 Posts

21 Aug, 2017 12:23

This is a very tricky one. Our experienced Office Manager (with finance responsibilities) sadly fell for a scam online. She received emails from our "School's Business Manager" who was abroad on holiday at the time, asking her to transfer some money (twice). To cut a long story short, she did transfer the money. It was only when the SBM returned that we realised what had happen, and the emails were not from the SBM at all but been sent by scammers.

The Office Manager sadly had not followed the protcol in place whereby there needs to be two signatures when dealing with money and transfers etc, but worse was that the Office Manager actually went into the bank and did the transfer and the bank didn't follow the protocol either. Luckily, due to this, it does look like we will receive the money back from the bank.

BUT, my question is should we start the disciplinary process with the Office Manager (following a full investigation etc) or should we just put it down to really bad judgment and know that everyone has learnt from this. 

Thanks,

Jenny

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  • Owen

    | 0 Posts

    21 Aug, 2017 12:48

    Hi Jenny

    It seems that you've conducted a good part of the investigation already, and come to a conclusion that it was an error in judgement.

    There are, to me, two elements to this. The first is that she made a mistake because she thought she was helping out a colleague. For me, that's the part that could lead to a disciplinary sanction. As you already seem to feel it was an error of judgement on her part I'd be inclined to get her manager to have a very stern word with her about it, and maybe put a note on her file about it, but not go down the formal disciplinary hearing route...

    The second is that she received emails from the School's Business Manager, a role that exists and a role holder who happened to be abroad at the time - I find that suspicious and I do have to wonder if another employee was involved in this. I would investigate with the bank to see if you can identify the recipient of the transfer was, and also consider whether to involve the police as this is fraud and therefore a criminal act.
  • Laura Ann

    | 0 Posts

    21 Aug, 2017 12:49

    I think you need to do the investigation first before looking at whether this may lead to a disciplinary process. My focus would be why she didn't follow the correct procedure (2 signatures) and whether this was normal practise, was her manager aware etc.
  • Jenny

    | 0 Posts

    21 Aug, 2017 13:08

    In reply to Owen:

    Thanks for your reply. The scammers definitely did seem to know their stuff, however what we have seen now as have had access to all the emails is that the actual email address that the emails came from what not the school's business manager's email address. Sadly though, they way emails work, is you don't always see the full email addresses unless you click on the "from" box. So initially you just see the name of the person that the email as come from. This is what happened. The Office Manager did pick up on this but it was a bit too late by the time she realised.

    We have decided to have an informal meeting and put note to file as we really do feel it was a complete error of judgement. And the Office Manager obviously has been feeling worse than terrible. I can't even begin to imagine how she must have been feeling the last few days since it came to light.
  • Jenny

    | 0 Posts

    21 Aug, 2017 13:09

    In reply to Owen:

    Sorry I meant to say we that it was reported to the anti-fraud (or what ever they are called straight away).
  • Steve Bridger

    | 0 Posts

    Community Manager

    21 Aug, 2017 15:53

    As a complete aside - but talking of online scams - I did enjoy listening to this podcast (parts I & II) last week.

    gimletmedia.com/.../
  • Keith

    | 0 Posts

    21 Aug, 2017 22:27

    Scams happen.

    The key is how we deal with them.

    I struggle to see why school money was transferred without at the very least a serious internal discussion. Therefore for me the deliberate (but maybe well intentioned) subverting of the schools processes at least calls for an investigation and likely a disciplinary charge.
  • Ray

    | 0 Posts

    22 Aug, 2017 09:31

    In reply to Keith:

    I tend to agree with Keith here

    This situation seems to be a more of a severe case of poor professional judgement than a "mistake". There are clearly some learning experiences to draw from this event.... the road to hell is paved with good intentions