To think this is fraud and do I say something or stay out of it?

What @Crikeyalmighty has said in exhaustive detail ... If the workers are paid (and clients billed) at a day rate or a whole of job rate, and are using dead time to help out the boss's sister/niece/friend, there's no fraud or theft of labour.

Materials might be another question - but if it's a large firm, there will be surplus materials knocking around that are never fully accounted for. Don't ask me why, but there always are!

Either way, I think OP will just show herself up as troublemaking prat if she tries to interfere.

Whoosh

Obviously I don't actually work for Sainbury's. I don't even shop there. I'm a waitrose girl through and through. Just making the point that stealing from your employer is not ok. At best friends relative should be fired at worst they should be in prison. I'd report to the company in a heart beat. I couldn't be friends with someone who was happy to benefit from the proceeds of crime.

Oh dear. You work for Sainsbury's, yet don't know how to spell it.
Better try next time!

@GarlicPint if there was an award for most patronising poster I think you would win.

We always make a mark-up on materials of between 20% and 100% and so materials purchased for non-profit work, stock, stuff that gets broken, extra items etc.. are covered in that mark up over a year - its not costed onto another customers job per se.

Op, you don't know for certain that the business owner/relative is paying out of their own pocket or via the Director loan account.

As others say a company can choose to incur costs. If the recipient was an employee it could fall under benefit in kind or if a client under bribery legislation however that does not appear to be the case.

I would question your motivation or perhaps even understanding of business practices and none of this is "reportable".

Does it affect you in any way? No
Is it any of your business? No
Should you butt out and mine your own? Yes
Are you an awful friend? Yes

Yes highly illegal, I would take a bet this is a public sector division paying the bills, so taxpayers. Custodial sentence.

The law is
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA).

Report to company A, just be aware that he may not be the only one exploiting this.

I work in Sainburies (quite up high - in the realms of checkout assistants anyway), I always do this for my family. When they come through I just pretend to scan have half items and they save money on their shopping. Sometimes I'll just a few of the items on the next persons shopping. It's just a perk of the job. Some my friends are jealous of the perks too!

I agree with this. You're nosey, jealous, and don't understand business.

So your “friend” gets work done for free by a family member. To the extent that there is something wrong with this, it is not your friend who is liable: it’s the employee who is diverting company resources to assist your friend for free. If you want THAT person to be fucked over, report it to the company. They would probably be disciplined and may well lose their job. Nothing will happen to your “friend” (though you are no friend to her if these are your thoughts/feelings).

Oh, dear, you are in a state
I'm generally in favour of dobbing frauds in. I think it's a nasty, sneaky kind of crime and it always hurts someone.

That said, I see an awful lot of posts here from infuriated 'friends' of benefit claimants, detailing lavish benefits they simply cannot be claiming - the 'friends' are so blinded by envy, they make up ridiculous scenarios and won't be told they've misunderstood something. I feel sorry for the DWP employees who have to process these mad reports.

I'm afraid your envy has taken you down a similar path, OP. If your mate's actually told you, in so many words, that the service she receives is being charged to other customers, then yes, there is fraud - or theft, I'm not sure which.

But has she told you this, exactly? Could the friend with the company simply be doing her a favour? In business, there's an informal concept known as a favour bank: people do each other favours, expecting to even out over the course of time.

Do you have reason to know the workers' payments are being fraudulently accounted for, or have you chosen to assume it?

In any case, I don't know who you'd report it to. Not the company, obviously! The local authority, perhaps? After all, you are not the one suffering detriment here (if anyone is) so you're not what the courts would call a complainant. Hmmm.

Perhaps you need to make friends with this construction company chap ...

If the company are putting the work through their books as a business expense, and claiming tax relief on it, then yes that's tax evasion, which is fraudulent.

If an individual employee is secretly using company money to pay for personal work, then that's embezzlement and also illegal.

There is a difference if you are providing a service for free and there are no company policies in the receivers employment contract, however seems wrong you are adding the materials on to other clients invoices.

It sounds like the OP is implying that their friend is effectively stealing from the company they work for by allowing the subcontractors to cost these jobs to the business they work for. I have seen this done twice at work. Once was for a payment I was given to authorise, I just done a bit of digging, realised it was not a ligit buisness cost and passed it to the one who was at fault and said I am keeping out of it. Did not report but would not agree to pay it. Another time was nothing to do with my contracts but had heard that 1 of the big bosses had been sacked and the reason was as he was getting work done on his house and adding the costs onto other jobs. Someone working on these contracts had looked into why costs were so high and caught him out. It is not OK. It is illegal as it is theft. If they don't own the buisness, it is not their money to spend for personal gain

How do you know this?

This is fraud. The company is unknowingly paying for work which is being done for free for the relative. The company paying will also unwittingly be paying less tax because it will have deductions which don't relate to their income earning process. It is literally no better than stealing from the company and HMRC. I don't know why people are defending the friend of OP because she is equally dishonest. It's hard to hide this forever if the company has an HMRC audit or gets audtors in if they realise their profit margins are lower than they should be. If the relative is caught he is likely to be prosecuted and certainly dismissed.

@doitellthem apologies I missed your previous response- it really depends if company A are paying a fixed ‘all inclusive’ price that they signed off and were happy with - if they did it’s not fraud but I agree it’s very poor business practice and I hope company A aren’t a public service and ‘have to use company B’ If so then yep, I think it’s fraud .

if however company B are charging for materials and time ‘ongoing’ and it’s not fixed , then I think that is fraud -

however as I’ve said if company A aren’t profitable and looking to ‘lose’ a bit of profit for corp tax purposes, they possibly won’t really care.

It isn’t fraud unless the company isn’t aware of what is being done which I doubt. There isn’t therefore any deception

I know. I think some people aren't understanding whatbop is saying though and thinks they own the business. Also maybe not familiar with the devastation business fraud causes to owners, employees and customers.

It absolutely is fraud, the neighbours are not employed by the company that are paying for the work to their house!

True, my bad. Every building company I dealt with had just men so I did jump to stereotypes.

You clearly need to get a life.

Ooops, sorry……I missed that bit! That will teach me to RTFT 🤣🤣🤣

Typical MN responses. It's fine to defraud a business out of 1000s but woe betide you if you defraud benefits of £1. Such double standards. I had a boyfriend who subcontracted for a large multinational and often helped his friends out by 'raising an invoice.' It's outright fraud and just imagine if everyone did it. Businesses would go bankrupt. It's every bit as serious as defrauding the government.