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

I cannot imagine reporting my friend. Stay out of it and do her a favour and don't contact her again.

Do you mean she is getting her employer to pay her bills without her employer’s knowledge?

That is criminal fraud and if her employer operates any sort of due diligence she will get found out and get taken to court and / or sacked.

Or is she the owner / manager of the business in question and putting it through the business to offset tax?

Or A.An.Other scheme?

Good grief, who cares. Out of all the things in the world to worry about, and you choose this! All over some jealousy with home improvements and landscaping🙄.

Maybe I missed something here, but how do we know that those who need to know in this company aren’t aware of the work being put through the books?

I don’t think the person who owns the business knows they’re paying though. They think they’re paying for work on their properties.

Yeah it’s theft.

So say for example Person A is high up in a company that owns a chain of hotels. They have various contractors that do work for them, landscapers, plumbers etc.

They send those contractors to Persons Bs house to do work then get invoices sent the company they work for instead of Person B.

Straight up fraud. I’d have to do something about it myself. Wouldn’t mind about losing the friendship if Person B is so dishonest they can take advantage like that.

I'm not quite sure what you mean @doitellthem. Perhaps you can clarify.

Does the relative own the company or are they employed there?
Is the company delivering landscaping services or is the company nothing to do with house/garden maintenance?

It's unclear what the answers to these questions are in your OP and whether it's fraud or not depends on the answers.

If the person running the business is paying the tradesmen and is willing to do so, I can’t see that it’s fraud. The fact that it seems very unfair to those who have to pay for such work themselves, is neither here nor there.

Lombard Street to a china orange that it is fraudulent.
Someone is paying for this work but they don't know they are.
Report it totally anon if it is concerning you.

It could be fraud if they are contractors to the business she works in and she has some decision making power in appointing them, yes. Is that what you think is happening?

You don't know that. You have no idea what's really going on.

I got the impression the relative was an employee of the business and OP thinks they are ripping company off. She has no proof of this though. Most people who do this sort of fraud would only do it to profit themselves or immediate family, so could be totally legit.

Agree with PP, need clarification on the set up.

If I own a business that does landscaping and pay my staff a salary and decide to send one of the landscapers to my sisters house and not charge her then I do think that should be my business as long as the landscapers are still being paid fairly. As the business owner, I am the only one 'losing out'.

If I work high up in a landscaping company, assigning work, but do not own the company and I send a landscaper to my sisters house but then amend the books so it looks like the landscaper was doing something different or this was part of a different paid for job then that's wrong. They are stealing resources.

In summary is the person sending the landscapers over in a position to gift this work or are they stealing time and resources.

It the latter, simply report it to the business

Yes, because then its "public" resources being used rather than a privately owned business.

If you are an finance controller you fiddle the invoice so the company pays for their job and the illegitimate one. Quite a common type of fraud unfortunately as a lot of business owners trust their staff and don't keep a good eye on their books.

Mind your own.

Wow. You’re really quite a nasty piece of work aren’t you

If they're stealing from a company that is different than fraud or buying a few bits on a trade vat account.
Stealing is serious. Your posts aren't clear.

Is this seriously all you have to occupy your mind? Petty doesn't cover it. Who needs a friend like you?!

The thing is, if you report it, (and I understand perfectly where fraud comes into it. The relative high up in the business is shafting the business because he is adding private work onto the bill) she'll know it was you. Also, I don't think it's exaggerating of me to say it's quite a serious white collar offence fraud is and could result in prison.

So I'd just keep quiet if I were you.

That's the key questions really isn't. Just like if I had relative who was high up in Porsche and they gave me car just because no one would really notice. .

This sentence doesn't make sense at all. Who are the "they" you are referring to? The people doing the work would be supplied by the company so are you trying to say they're not charging her, but are booking their time to their employer and getting paid for the work by their employer? If this is what you're trying to say, don't you think their employer will notice that they're not receiving any income for this work?

So the business owner does not know that the employee is using their time or other employees time during business hours and is also using company bought parts or goods. Without permission then that is a mix of massively cheeky, breach of employment contract and theft.

Well, that’s not really true, and also depends on who “they” are.

If the company is 100% owned by people who are happy to allow this then it is indeed their choice. But even then HMRC would care, it is technically tax evasion to lower company profits in this way, either she should be paying tax as income on the benefits received or the company should not be claiming a tax deduction for the costs. So you could report them to HMRC, but this is such a ubiquitous thing and damn hard to prove I’m not sure they would actually take any action and it does feel a bit petty.

If the company is not owned by family then either 1). This is an employee perk designed to increase retention, in which case it’s fine; 2) the employee is committing gross misconduct or 3) the company directors are not complying with their fiduciary duties to maximise shareholder return. So someone in the company might care, but finding out who to report it to is tough.

No, they are not The company can do work for free if it wants, it is not fraud.