to ask our former-employee's new employer if they were given a reference purporting to be from us.

[namelessposter]

Abridged back story: a former sales employee of ours left at the end of Oct on civil terms, after a year of OK (but not great) performance, telling us they were planning on leaving the country to stay with family, and not returning to the industry.

3 weeks later, they have just turned up in an equivalent role with a competitor about 2 miles away. As they are entitled to do.

BUT on their last day with us, they sent an email to their personal mail, with a blank copy of our company headed paper. Then deleted all their sent mail and logged off.

We restore any mail deleted by exiting employees from back-ups as a matter of course, hence why we know this.

Their new employer didn't approach us for a reference. The employee was with us for 14 months, and that they worked with us is well referenced in the public domain. The new employer is a big company, so seems unlikely that their HR dept wouldn't have asked for references. The employee had form for lying to clients (and we are currently clearing up a couple of messes they left behind in this respect, which have come to light after she's left).

Would you ask the new employer if they were given a written reference on our headed paper, purporting to be from us, and if so, let them know it's a fake?

CleanLinesSharpEdges

Collecting notepaper from all the companies where she / he has worked?

What would you gain from this now without coming across as being bitter? Surely a company well known would have done more checks on this person. Let it go, it only looks bad on you to pursue this.

YY to sending the ex employee a solicitor's letter explaining the consequences of using the letter head.

Re: the new employer, could this not be cleared up more subtly by sending them a genuine reference that's truly reflective of their performance? I'm sure they'll call if they already have one that appears much more favourable.

That said, I presume your company owns your domain name...a competitor is likely to know what that is so if ex employee has set up a fake mail and the competitor has failed to notice the domain name isn't correct, I'd be surprised.

Although what your former employee has done is wrong, in your shoes I'd be pleased that your competition is so lax.

Any employer who accepts a hand delivered reference purportedly from the previous employers is, at best naïve, at worst down right incompetent.

Why do you want to interfere and lose this person their new job?

I disagree with others saying it's the new company's lookout. Your company could be seen in a negative light if a reference supposedly from you is lies or exaggerating. It could impact your company's reputation.

On the other hand I don't know any company that would take a printed reference rather than one emailed from hr or the manager directly, as most employees have access to their own company's letterhead and could fake up a reference.

How can you all know that taking a copy of the OP's company notepaper was innocent.
She might be selling copies to people who are falsifying quotes or recommendations or whatever.

Write a formal letter telling her you were disturbed to see that she had done it and hoped she realized falsely using someone else's paper is illegal.

She will prob write back saying it was in error but will be less likely to use it I should think.

Norfolk, I suppose one reason could be that the OP does not want a reputation for giving references that could well turn out to be very unreliable. This could adversely affect future employees who wish to change jobs.

How could it possibly impact badly on the OP's company?

As far as I can see the worst that could happen is the employee is crap and the new company wouldn't have a leg to stand on as they hadn't actually verified the reference.

I think the OP could consider the reputation of her company at risk here.

An average employee being given a glowing reference doesn't engender confidence in the general perception of the company, does it?

Not sure what you have to gain by contacting the new employer. It just sounds vindictive.

do you want to interfere and let your direct competitor lose a duff employee who lies to clients?

Let's hope a fake reference WAS the reason the ex-employee took letterhead.

Because all the other possibilities are worse.

Can I just ask, what other stuff do you put on headed paper? Do you send invoices, orders etc on it? Do you write to customers and suppliers with details of promotions etc on it? Could someone use it to write to your customers and say that you are closing down, thanks for the business and by the way 'competitor' is a good person to take any continuing business to?

How ethical are your competitor and former employee?

I suggest that you change your heading paper and just write a quick update where you think it appropriate to say that any communication on old headed paper should be ignored. Of course, you will know whether this is a crazy over-reaction or not. Sometimes I think I read too much fiction.

Norfolkandchance1234 I'm not sure I'm going to do anything at all at present. I don't wish her ill, and I wouldn't actually want her to lose her new job. But I am not very comfortable that I suspect her of going around in my industry, circulating letters forged in my name.

PausingFlatly you put it a lot better than I, cross post.

Is it just blank letterheads that were sent?
No other databases or propitiatory company information?
If there is, I guess you have a case for having an informal conversation with their legal department to say you are investigating the theft of company IP by a former employee, and you have cause to believe she is now working for the new organisation, although this hasn't been confirmed and you haven't been approached for a reference so cannot be sure. And let them do the math

These days anyone can knock up a letter head, legitimate or otherwise, in a matter of minutes on any computer.

Bearbehind the normal way it would impact bad on the OP's company is that they will show themselves to be excessively monitoring personal email (and I don't agree that it's completely clear you can monitor an email from a work account to the individuals private email address, whatever the policy is, such an email is clearly personal), and vindictive, particularly if there wasn't an forgery here. All of which will harm recruitment, honest staff don't want to feel that their personal mails will be read by anyone...

And non bothering to take up any references is hardly unusual now, given that they are freely readable by the person means it's generally not worth anyone's trouble.

I especially wouldn't say anything in this case as it would be so hard to prove the lies to customers were anything but mistakes, and certainly not worth the cost to the business in attempting to fight it.

If you're actually seriously worried about this, I would suggest:

a) changing your headed paper

b) writing to all your customers on the new paper, stating that you are aware that there has been a theft and if they are in any doubt about any letters they have received "from you", they should contact you (on your longstanding phone & email addresses, so they can be confident that your current letter isn't itself a scam)

c) going to the local paper and stating that there has been a theft and someone may be trying to pass themselves off as you. If anyone has any doubts, they should again contact you on your longstanding contact details.

But you'll have to decide if your assessment of the risk is worth all the cost and bother. There are also PR aspects, so you'll have to decide whether all publicity is good publicity or not!

I think you should go with the 'i was suprised not to be asked for a reference," or " did your reference request get lost in the post"

to the posters saying "why do you want to ruin it for her if it is fake" - is it ok for her to commit fraud then? (if indeed thats what it is?) would you turn a blind eye to a shop lifter, afterall, they are probably just trying to feed their family???

if the new company are really naive enough to accept a reference on headed notepaper, which is all too easily gained by employees, then it is their lookout.
i wouldn't waste your time.
your competitors have acquired a duff employee. result.

this isn't about protecting the fraudster by the way. she has what's coming to her. she'll get found out in the end. i am sure you'll be contacted by their HR within the year to "follow up on a couple of things" when they want rid of her.

Either do what make itbetter suggested ringing hr and asking if they needed a reference as you havent been asked for one for leave it as its up the company to check references.

sparechange that she has a new job came to light because on her first day, one of our clients emailed her on her old email eddress (i.e the one she had with us, now forwarding to her replacement), congratulating her on the new job, cc-ing her new colleagues, and discussing an order she's placed with her. Clearly the client's email account auto-selected the wrong email address - client thought she was emailing "ex@newco" and it defaulted to "ex@oldco".

Now, in our industry, many clients do with with 2 or more suppliers, so it's possible that new employer also has a business relationship, and she hasn't nicked the database. It's also possible that she has. TBH although it's annoying, there's not a lot I can do about it. Clients will go to whoever they want to. if they're loyal to us, then an email from her "newco" won't lure them.

ScarletFever if I were to query it, that's the only way I'd do it. But I'm thinking I'll let it go. As you all say, the NewCo will find out soon enough, and they're handicapped in the meantime!