The Deceptive Office Manager: Employee theft and embezzlement

When this CFE was being ignored by his heating and cooling company he suspected more than poor customer service. Sure enough, the office manager was pilfering the firm. Here's the CFE's story of how he helped devise a plan to prevent subsequent employee fraud.

When we bought our new house, we paid for warranty service on our air conditioner through BACME Heating and Cooling, which was owned and operated by Cliff.1 After 18 months, we had a small problem with the unit and one of Cliff's technicians said he would order a part. Weeks went by so I called BACME and talked to Christine, the kind and helpful office manager. She said they would research the problem and call me back within a couple of days. But there was no response for weeks. The owner eventually fixed the problem and gave me an additional year of warranty without charge.

Several months after my initial calls to the company, we repeatedly called about another problem. Christine always had some reason why Cliff wasn't available. One time he was out of the office, another time he was at lunch, another time he was in conference and couldn't be disturbed. Christine was always willing to help but she couldn't solve our problem.

I told my wife that I was finally fed up. After I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, my fraud examination adventure began.