To report my employer for furlough fraud

[djeorh]

Furloughed for over 3 months but carried on working - at first I was told I didn't have to but then more and more work was sent my way including big projects that needed to be done ASAP.

These projects are now 80% of the way done as I've been doing them on furlough. However I now find out they are considering making me redundant or offering me a part time contract in September once projects are done.

I feel they have taken advantage of me and pressured me to do the projects on furlough and then hit me with this bombshell. I'm so angry I want to report them, but doing so would probably make the company go under and make innocent colleagues lose their jobs.

My daughter turned work down on furlough and was also made redundant. It was used as a yardstick, in my opinion, of who was "loyal".

YANBU. We run payrolls for businesses and we've been advised that if we become aware of anyone doing this, we have to report them to the National Crime Agency under the Money Laundering Regulations!

I've heard of a lot of businesses saying "what can I get?" even when they're perfectly comfortable. The point of the furlough scheme is to avoid having to lay staff off, not just cut your costs for a few months.

Didn’t you sign a letter to say that you wouldn’t do any work ?

[quote StCharlotte]@ILoveTotoror

Fingers and toes crossed for your DH's job.[/quote]
Thank you x 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

Absolutely

I would check the accounts online first, having you work on furlough may have been the only way to keep you and others employed so you all have jobs to go back to.

And yet it was still illegal, it was still defrauding the tax office, and that is therefore no defence at all.

Ask yourself, will you find another job easily, what will you gain from reporting it?
She will lose nothing from reporting it either. And we will all gain if the furlough bill is not massively inflated by all these fraudulent claims.

Karma and all that.
Exactly. If an employer chooses to act illegally, they should expect to face the consequences.

Some people have made shocking comments - it was ridiculous in the first place to offer people 80% to do nothing.
Perhaps, though I think one can argue that it has (a) saved lives and (b) saved businesses. Neither of which seem ridiculous to me.

Absolutely no incentive for lazy folk to return to work with that meal ticket.
Employees don't get to decide whether they want to be furloughed or not. So it's nothing to do with laziness. If your employer wants you to work, you have to work, otherwise be sacked. Just like normal.

Some folk need to read into expenses and how much staff and running a business actually costs, that money depletes pretty quickly when there is no money coming into the business.
We understand this. That's why the furlough scheme was in operation. It's still ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for defrauding the country by taking furlough money and continuing to demand your employees do their jobs. The law was crystal clear on this: you can only claim furlough money for employees who are NOT WORKING.

I really, really hope you aren't a business owner. Because karma may indeed be coming to get you.

Furlough was meant to be for business who’s income had stopped. It was to keep there employees in place so that when they began trading again they still had staff in place, it isn’t for business who are still trading and have work for their employees to do. If they have work then they need to pay their staff.
Obviously there’s a bit in the middle where they only have work for some of thier staff which is why they can furlough the ones they don’t need.

It’s pretty simple - if you have work for an employee to do then you pay them, if you have no work coming in you furlough them.

Yes report them. The furlough system is an absolute mess and HMRC hugely underfunded but for many companies it will be easy to provide they have committed fraud.

Some employers are just lousy.

40 of us have been forloughed across the company.

Our holiday year goes from April to April and usually none of us would have used two weeks holidays by the end of July as it means we have hardly any left to last the rest of year to April.

However, we got an email from HR two weeks ago setting out two weeks (one in June and one in July) we had to use as holidays as they "didn't want to accrue a backlog" when we go back

When I got my payslip I was interested to see they paid the 20% top up for that week, so the tax payer (me and you) paid 80% of my holiday week.

A colleague and I discussed it today and although it's allowed it just seems shitty of them to basically tell us to take two weeks during furlough when it will cost them very little to pay us.

The company is in trouble and I am worried they'll reduce out hours on return then try and make us redundant on the lower hours.

(I've worked there 20 years for 40 hour weeks but if they reduce our hours to 25 I will get redundancy on the 25 weeks rather than 40. They did this to another department and the Union said it was all above board)

So some companies are just shit and don't care about their employees, unfortunately mine is one of them.

We haven't had any contact from the company since the end of March apart from the email telling us the two weeks holidays we were being made to take

Sorry, I meant to say, I would definitely be reporting your company.

@newschapter you should take that up with payroll - they do actually have to pay to top up your salary to 100% if you take leave while on furlough.

www.gov.uk/guidance/holiday-entitlement-and-pay-during-coronavirus-covid-19

@stuckforthefourthtime yes they did, they just topped up the 20% to the government's 80% rather than pay us 100% themselves.

I maybe haven't explained it well.

Report. Me and DH have had to work every day whilst not home educating our kids. Furlough was for people with no work. N9 one else

Report them. So you only got 80% of your wage too?

You could report them but you have also been breaking the rules by still working.

report - its a simple online form, I used it the other day.
You're guaranteed anonymity, so a bit like whistleblowing protection, although you are asked to confirm whether you will provide a written witness statement,

www.tax.service.gov.uk/shortforms/form/TEH_IRF

Maybe complain about it to your employer in writing. If you do this now while the other stuff is still a rumour, then if they make you redundant or make you go part time - you can hit them with a whistleblowing claim on the basis that they are only doing this because you complained and maybe wring some more money out of them. I hate employers like this.

Agree
Report them
Cheeky bastards

Newschapter under the working time directive your employer is legally obliged to pay you 100% wages for holiday taken under furlough.

And anyone atm who is asked to cut their hours should spell out in writing that they are only agreeing to this on the basis that any redundancy and notice pay will be on full pay. An employer can hardly object to this. A simple email to hr will do the trick.

@Newschapter out of interest, does it detail on your payslip how much of your pay is derived from CJRS?

inews.co.uk/news/mike-ashley-retail-empire-tops-hmrc-hit-list-furlough-scheme-456162/amp

Report them. The Government will probably try to claw back money from people being furloughed by putting up taxes in the future.

It annoys me that I have had to work throughout lockdown and pay tax for these unscrupulous people to take the piss.

As far as I’m concerned businesses that do this will be acting illegally elsewhere. How could you ever be sure they would meet the health and safety regs? Pay the pension contributions properly?

In terms of the bigge picture the businesses that close as a result of being caught committing fraud deserve to go under. But it clears the field for the next struggling Business to fill the gap and then grow and hire new employees while following all the rules.

Why did you work if you were furloughed?

Report these cheats.
However, who do you report to and what is the process? I have no idea.