any advice?

[jcol]

What is the name of your state? Tennessee
My daughter has worked for a retailer in a mall in our town for over 2 years. Her best friend worked for the same company in another mall in a neighboring town. My daughter, her best friend and my daughter's manger were all friends. My daughter's manager is a somewhat unscrupulous person and I had questioned her friendship with him. A couple of weeks ago my daugher's best friend came into the store while my daugher was working and came behind the counter and logged on to the register under my daugher's employee number. This "friend" proceeded to load gift cards with amounts of $500. He loaded many of these but, I don't know how many maybe, as many as 20. My daughter asked him to stop and he did not. He said that the manager did it all the time and said it was OK. My daughter has seen the manager do this and had questioned it before and was told it was OK. The manager had even given my daughter gift cards occasionally and even did this to make his sales day. Obviously, loss prevention noted this and went to the store to question the manager. He walked out and has refused to talk to them. My daughter talked to loss prevention and told them she was involved just to protect her friend because he told her they should stick together. We made our daughter confess the truth that she did not run the gift cards but, that she knew about it. My husband talked to the loss prevention person and he has given us little info. What do we do?
Also, my daughter had just resigned from this company because of a long history of problems with the company. She had worked for them in another mall and was physically and sexually harassed by a mall security guard and the company did nothing to protect her. We pursued the matter until the guard was fired but, have not filed suit against anyone. The reason she was in the mall where the theft happened is because it wasn't safe for her to be in the mall where she was harrassed. She had begun to be harrassed in this new mall and quit last week because she was frightened to remain with the company. She is a good kid. She is in nursing school and what got her into this mess is unclear. Fear of losing what she thought was a friend I guess. We are concerned becasue all of this was done on her emloyee number but, everybody in the store knew everybody elses employee number.
Any advice

 

[mlane58]

What is the name of your state? Tennessee
My daughter has worked for a retailer in a mall in our town for over 2 years. Her best friend worked for the same company in another mall in a neighboring town. My daughter, her best friend and my daughter's manger were all friends. My daughter's manager is a somewhat unscrupulous person and I had questioned her friendship with him. A couple of weeks ago my daugher's best friend came into the store while my daugher was working and came behind the counter and logged on to the register under my daugher's employee number. This "friend" proceeded to load gift cards with amounts of $500. He loaded many of these but, I don't know how many maybe, as many as 20. My daughter asked him to stop and he did not. He said that the manager did it all the time and said it was OK. My daughter has seen the manager do this and had questioned it before and was told it was OK. The manager had even given my daughter gift cards occasionally and even did this to make his sales day. Obviously, loss prevention noted this and went to the store to question the manager. He walked out and has refused to talk to them. My daughter talked to loss prevention and told them she was involved just to protect her friend because he told her they should stick together. We made our daughter confess the truth that she did not run the gift cards but, that she knew about it. My husband talked to the loss prevention person and he has given us little info. What do we do?
Also, my daughter had just resigned from this company because of a long history of problems with the company. She had worked for them in another mall and was physically and sexually harassed by a mall security guard and the company did nothing to protect her. We pursued the matter until the guard was fired but, have not filed suit against anyone. The reason she was in the mall where the theft happened is because it wasn't safe for her to be in the mall where she was harrassed. She had begun to be harrassed in this new mall and quit last week because she was frightened to remain with the company. She is a good kid. She is in nursing school and what got her into this mess is unclear. Fear of losing what she thought was a friend I guess. We are concerned becasue all of this was done on her emloyee number but, everybody in the store knew everybody elses employee number.
Any advice

Was there a legal question in there somewhere?

 

[fairisfair]

if your daughter honestly thought that this was "okay", didn't she wonder why the "friend" needed to use HER employee number and not their own???

 

[Some Random Guy]

So your daughter sat idly by while her friend used her employee ID to create $10,000 in phony gift cards? Can you articulate any good reason why she shouldn't be arrested for theft or embezzlement?

 

[jcol]

a reason for you

No I can not give you a good reason why my daughter would do such a thing. It is the same as anybody else who finds themselves in a position they never thought they would be in. Apparently, there is a market for stolen gift cards on ebay adn other places. I have found out that it is common for employees to steal goods or gift cards (there is a way to ring them up that the transaction dissapears, or so the dumb employee thinks) and then sell them for a fraction of their value. It is still all profit to the thief. My daughter's friend was GIVING them away. They are honestly not bad people. My daughter is unbelievably well thought of in the community. I am not looking for a way to justify her actions, or to just remove her pain. I want this to change he character at its core. I want her to be the person that I believe she is and wants to be. This was just a stupid stupid thing to do. Her friend is one of those air headed people who doesn't think before he acts. They are definitely not the criminal element. My daughter's manager has apparently dissapeared. He walked off the job when he was confronted about all of this and no one knows where he is. He is the one who taught my daughter and her friend (who also worked for the company in the past) to do this. He did it all the time. Most of the time he would sell a gift card, make the transaction dissapear and keep the cash. He also gave gift cards to people including customers as incentives to shop. She says that she had seen him do it so much that she had begun to take it for granted. As a parent who loves her child, I want her to be made better from this and I want the company to have what rightfully belongs to them. And they do. It was given back to them this week. So, while it is easy to judge, I am asking if amyone has experience in this realm and can give me some advice.

 

[fairisfair]

sorry, but my only advice is get your daughter a good attorney, perhaps it can be pled down to some sort of lesser charge (although actually you have yet to state the charges she is facing) Yes people make mistakes, but honestly most people know from a very early age that stealing is wrong.

Good luck to you,

 

[Bretagne]

Here are the legal concerns your daughter has.

Civilly, her employer can sue her for fraud, theft, and embezzlement. Hopefully, since she was cooperative with Loss Prevention and her manager was tagged as a thief too, the retailer might not sue her civilly. Also, it might be hard to collect a judgment from your daughter; I'm assuming she doesn't have much for assets.

If she gets sued, she should check with a bankruptcy attorney to see if it would behoove her to file now so she can discharge the judgment. If sued, your daughter will lose.

Criminally, she could be charged with many different crimes. I don't know anything Tennessee-specific, but generally (based on common law) she could get aiding and abetting embezzlement, theft, swindle, etc. The severity of the crime(s) she can/may get charged with will most definately be a felony level. In fact, she could be charged with multiple crimes--as many as one felony per gift card.

So, my advice is for you to retain an attorney immediately to represent your daughter. Also, your daughter should not be talking to anyone about any of this without her attorney present. She's already made a ton of incriminating statements, which can't be suppressed or taken back, so it's important to preserve the consistency of her story as she has told it.

Also, beware of the friend. Worst comes to worst, he'll turn and say he had no idea and nothing to do with it--after all, it was your daughter's employee id that was used to commit the fraud. She shouldn't be talking to the friend, either, until this is all sorted out.

One last thought....a few weeks may go by and nothing will happen. Don't start feeling safe, like nothing is going to happen because you haven't heard anything. The state can take plenty of time getting their case together before they charge her. (At least a year; I don't know the statutes of limitation in TN). Also, she could get sued civilly in the future.

 

[jcol]

does it matter?

Will it make any difference that they gave all of the cards and the stuff purchased with them back to the company?

 

[Some Random Guy]

Will it make any difference that they gave all of the cards and the stuff purchased with them back to the company?

Well it means less money to pay back from the lawsuits. However, if your daughter gave the cards back, then it proves she was one of the people doing the stealing and not just standing around while her firend stole.

 

[smutlydog]

My daughter talked to loss prevention and told them she was involved just to protect her friend because he told her they should stick together.

This statement doesn't sound good. Maybe I am wrong the statement implies that it was a mutually agreed upon crime. I don’t understand the need to stick together.

It's hard to picture this guy telling your daughter we need to stick together because I just used your employee number to steal a buch of gift cards.