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His Managers are Stealing; He Reported

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kranky017

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? California

My younger brother works at one of the biggest electornics store chains in California and a manager forwarded a call to his department to have him "take care" of a customer who's pre-ordered and reserved 'XBox 360' game console was "missing." My brother works in financing, not sales or customer service. He was causualy instructed by this manager to give the customer a full refund and an invitation to 70% off of her next purchase.
However, this customer is on a first name basis with most of the sales associates and managers in this store as she has used their services to supply for most of her home electronics/entertainment needs for a long while. She was very confused as to why she was getting this treatment when she has been such a faithful customer and she requested that my brother ask a few more questions regarding where and why her pre-ordered merchandice could have vanished.
My brother made only a few calls before things started getting fishy. He called the manager who had told him to "fix" the situation in the first place, and he asked the manager for more details. The manager's response was very nervous and hung up with him without giving any straight answers. He did say he would take care of it. My brother told the customer to call back in 2 hours (it turned out that the customer was told to "call back 2 hours" 2 hours earlier by another associate!). My brother periodically checked in with the manager (face-to-face) to see if there was any progress. When the customer was due to call back any moment, he checked with the manager again and asked him about 3-4 OTHER missing XBox 360 game consoles that were supposed to be reserved. The manager told him that they had worked out the "full-refund/70% off next purchase" deal, but the manager lied about recently returning from an installation of one of the game consoles (it was a lie because my brother had talked to him 20-30 min ago when traffic would have had him gone for over 2 hours) (my brother confronted him on this fact and recieved a hostile response of "just leave it alone!"). He was told that 2 other managers wanted to talk to him; and that my brother "didnt know what he was getting into." These other 2 managers are known to be corrupt (frequently instructing associates to ignore missing plasma tv's and other expensive merchendise). What is also interesting here is the store itself does not profit from selling the XBox360. Microsoft ALLOWS them to sell it, and the company does so because of the business that it brings. All associates had been briefed regarding this and many other special details (like up to a $10,000 fine and instant termination if a console is sold before the release date, which, by the way, DID happen, but the sales associate was not fined, in fact she was moved to another department AND promoted!)
Anyway, in light of all of these scandalous facts, my brother then called the immediate supervisor of his department, and told her the situation, being that it was really not his problem, but that it did seem worth reporting. His immediate supervisor gave my brother the number to the General Manager of the store and said that he should call him because he could trust him. The general manager responded very sternly informing my brother that he was in "way over his head" and that he should "let it go" and that it would be "taken care of."
In the next few hours, my brother was yelled at and cursed out by many of the managers in question.
After that time passed, the general manager arrived in the store and had meetings with all of the managers. All of the associates knew something bad was going on, but my brother just minded his own business, and as soon as his shift ended, he took off.

He's due back in work tomorrow afternoon. Do they have grounds to terminate him? If they do, is there anything legal that is worth his pursuing? He knows not to cut any deals, and he hasn't, but if he doesn't and they fire him, what can he do about it?
 
Last edited:


seniorjudge

Senior Member
kranky017 said:
What is the name of your state? California

My younger brother works at one of the biggest electornics store chains in California and a manager forwarded a call to his department to have him "take care" of a customer who's pre-ordered and reserved 'XBox 360' game console was "missing." My brother works in financing, not sales or customer service. He was causualy instructed by this manager to give the customer a full refund and an invitation to 70% off of her next purchase.
However, this customer is on a first name basis with most of the sales associates and managers in this store as she has used their services to supply for most of her home electronics/entertainment needs for a long while. She was very confused as to why she was getting this treatment when she has been such a faithful customer and she requested that my brother ask a few more questions regarding where and why her pre-ordered merchandice could have vanished.
My brother made only a few calls before things started getting fishy. He called the manager who had told him to "fix" the situation in the first place, and he asked the manager for more details. The manager's response was very nervous and hung up with him without giving any straight answers. He did say he would take care of it. My brother told the customer to call back in 2 hours (it turned out that the customer was told to "call back 2 hours" 2 hours earlier by another associate!). My brother periodically checked in with the manager (face-to-face) to see if there was any progress. When the customer was due to call back any moment, he checked with the manager again and asked him about 3-4 OTHER missing XBox 360 game consoles that were supposed to be reserved. The manager told him that they had worked out the "full-refund/70% off next purchase" deal, but the manager lied about recently returning from an installation of one of the game consoles (it was a lie because my brother had talked to him 20-30 min ago when traffic would have had him gone for over 2 hours) (my brother confronted him on this fact and recieved a hostile response of "just leave it alone!"). He was told that 2 other managers wanted to talk to him; and that my brother "didnt know what he was getting into." These other 2 managers are known to be corrupt (frequently instructing associates to ignore missing plasma tv's and other expensive merchendise). What is also interesting here is the store itself does not profit from selling the XBox360. Microsoft ALLOWS them to sell it, and the company does so because of the business that it brings. All associates had been briefed regarding this and many other special details (like up to a $10,000 fine and instant termination if a console is sold before the release date, which, by the way, DID happen, but the sales associate was not fined, in fact she was moved to another department AND promoted!)
Anyway, in light of all of these scandalous facts, my brother then called the immediate supervisor of his department, and told her the situation, being that it was really not his problem, but that it did seem worth reporting. His immediate supervisor gave my brother the number to the General Manager of the store and said that he should call him because he could trust him. The general manager responded very sternly informing my brother that he was in "way over his head" and that he should "let it go" and that it would be "taken care of."
In the next few hours, my brother was yelled at and cursed out by many of the managers in question.
After that time passed, the general manager arrived in the store and had meetings with all of the managers. All of the associates knew something bad was going on, but my brother just minded his own business, and as soon as his shift ended, he took off.

He's due back in work tomorrow afternoon. Do they have grounds to terminate him? If they do, is there anything legal that is worth his pursuing? He knows not to cut any deals, and he hasn't, but if he doesn't and they fire him, what can he do about it?

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