Ex-employee kept equipment

[AB]

Just a quick one.

We had an employee recently leave us. When employed he borrowed a PC to enable him to work from home on occasion.

He has disappeared and will not reply to messages (email, text) or answer his phone.

We want the computer back for a couple of reasons, mainly because it has company data on it which could cause us problems if it fell into the wrong hands or was used inappropriately but also for the simple reason that it's ours and he cost us a fortune in the run up to his departure due to him being lazy and untrustworthy (we discovered he'd been to prison for fraud too).

We did try knocking on his door, no answer.

What's the best course of action now? I'd rather do something that makes him want to give us the computer back rather than involve police (if that was even an option).

I'm happy for him to keep the numerous pens and stationary, even the Echo Dot which went missing.

[AB]

We're only a small business so no official IT policy etc.

We lent him the computer and bought him a couple of wireless handsets for his landline.

He's not moved as his car is always outside. He's just being an arse.

[AB]

Would something through Money Claim Online be worth looking into?

He'd then have to do something about it.

[AB]

TimmyMallett said:

What sort of company data is on it?

Complete access to our company Dropbox, well the stuff that was on it before we changed his passwords. He was our Finance Manager.

Same with emails that have come in and sit in Outlook but obviously nothing new as passwords changed.

We discovered he'd been doing very little for a fair while, pulled him up on it and he left his keys on the desk one day when I was out never to be heard from again giving me 2 days to get up to speed on 4 months of accounts and do a VAT return he told me was in hand.

He basically knew he'd been rumbled and did a runner.

[AB]

TimmyMallett said:

You employed a finance manager with a previous fraud conviction?

You don't need an IT policy, you need to stop recruiting. Anyone.

Undisclosed at the time, but thank you for the advice. It came about following a meeting with our accountant who knew him and frowned when his name was mentioned before pulling me aside and advising me of what he knew.

I've had some help and we've been through all accounts forensically, every single item in and out since he joined us.

[AB]

hotchy said:

Car on drive, no answer and hes just decided never to go to work... Is he alive? Have a sniff in his letter box and report back.

He's an older bloke who had retired once, he hasn't died although he's probably quite close to it.

drdel said:

Take note of Breadvan's advice - he's bang on as usual. Ignore the rest.

It's company property and you want it ALL back. If the ex-employee won't return it you might even have a case for damages based on the costs/time it will involve to replicate and secure the consequences of the company data in his position.

Don't mess about wasting time on a Forum.

Thanks, will look into it.

surveyor_101 said:

It matters not that an employee has left the business and the OP and it may appear didn't bother confirming the person employment had ended in writing. Bad idea in my book! Records =, records, records in this area. "hey left his keys on the desk one day, so we assumed" is not great if he takes legal action.

We didn't confirm anything in writing to him, may have been a mistake. What we got was a short letter from him saying he wouldn't be coming back.

lyonspride said:

It's not possible that perhaps you listened too much to people who just didn't like the guy?
Maybe he just thought "f**k these c**ts, I work my arse off and THIS is what I get? Criticism from people who don't even know what I actually do!"

Our accountants spotted that he didn't have a clue when it came to end of year accounts. They charged us more than the agreed fees based on this and Finance Manager blamed this on Sales Director 'poor record keeping'.

I'm relatively new to all this and probably placed too much trust in this guy who I knew from a previous role and appeared to know what he was talking about. But trust me, having manually gone back over everything from the past 4 months i.e. start of this financial year it is VERY clear that this guy had been sitting around doing very little and being paid quite well for it.

However, not really the point of the original post.

[AB]

To answer the question around pay, he put his keys on the desk almost immediately after his monthly pay had hit his account and made it clear he didn't want to hear from us again. He knew what he was doing, he knew he'd been found out.

I don't particularly want to spend anything chasing this, I just want the computer back due to the data on it and so I don't have to buy another one.

We're a small business but growing quite quickly, turned over in first 3 months of this year year what we did last year (£500k) and outsourcing HR is something we are and have been looking at so thanks for all the advice. https://www.citation.co.uk/ are looking favourite but happy to hear from any PHers who do similar.

[AB]

Well it's not too late to do that I guess, and confirm we will require the computer back.

Then if it doesn't happen, which I really doubt it will, I'll act on other advice above.

Thanks.

[AB]

Done, listed full spec of machine and put "company data" in bold.

If we've not managed to get it back a week from today then we'll try something else.

[AB]

HantsRat said:

Did you post recorded signed for?

Yes as well as emailing a scanned copy.