Non employee wearing company uniform

[Elyana]

Just interested to know where we stand in legal terms and whether anything can realistically be done about it.

The person in question wears company branded uniform in the vicinity of our operations. Essentially they are impersonating a staff member and at the very least in possession of company property.

They have never worked for us but purchase the items on eBay from ex employees. Whenever anyone tries to broach the matter there are complaints of harassment.

Thoughts?

That is proper creepy

Isn't it

How very odd.

Do they benefit at all from wearing it?

For example raised status? Interact with the public? Attention garnering?

Do they act as an employee while wearing it or is it just passive?

Are you in a regulated profession, like nursing?

What kind of company/organisation is it?

Obviously there's a different between impersonating a police officer and impersonating an Asda checkout worker (no offence to anyone working at Asda, just an example).

That is not normal. Do you mind saying what sort of company? Eg if it's Greggs it's not so dangerous, but if he's hanging around outside a hospital dressed as a paramedic, more of a concern.

If this person is holding themselves out as being an employee of your business and that is negatively impacting your business and/or employees or has the potential to then I expect you’d have little problem obtaining an injunction - in the sense that a judge would be happy to grant it. To actually raise and serve proceedings could be tricky though unless you know this persons name and address.

I think you have to focus on what this person is trying to do - eg. If they are passing themselves off as an employee, are they defrauding people by taking money from them where people think they're paying for a service from your business.

The action of wearing the uniform is probably not something you can do anything about, it's the actions they're taking while wearing the uniform that might then be theft/fraud etc.

Or the business can suddenly change all the uniforms! Then he would be out of place with the rest of you.

But yes it’s weird. If you called the police - non -emergency obviously - they’d probably move them on and that might be enough to deter them.

what do you mean by "complaints of harassment"? given that all reasonable people can see instantly that they are behaving unreasonably by impersonating an employee, the only possible consequence of such a complaint would be more people realising how unreasonable this person is.

is there a mental health issue here? ie I could imagine that a certain kind of (lovely but very low IQ) person might get totally obsessed with a dream of having a job at KFC whilst in no way having the mental capacity to actually have a job at KFC, and might obtain a uniform to get closer to their fantasy. if it was that kind of situation then they would have carers who should be helping them to find a different interest. if they have full mental capacity then they must have some ulterior motive which isn't legal, there aren't any reasonable and legal purposes of doing this.

It's a sort of status thing I think. Think niche hobby in the public transport sector. Yes it is a regulated profession.

Person in question is passive although likely to be approached by the public who do not realise they are not employed by us.

Difficult one really. We do have a name, not sure about an address.

So this person is masquerading as a public transport employee?
If there is a risk to public safety the police need to be involved

Also you should be insisting that uniform is handed back by ex employees so that needs to be sorted.

Do you mean like a train-spotter type who likes to dress up and pretend that he's actually a train driver or something, as it makes him feel even more 'involved' in his hobby?

Yes exactly this sort of thing. No risk to public safety that I can see however and unlikely police would be interested.

They will be easy to spot at the moment, just wait for a train or bus strike (there'll be one along in a minute) and they'll be the only one working! 😂

This. I used to work for a bank and they were understandably very hot on this.
Get eBay to take down the listings.

I know a trainspotter and they are quite focussed on 'rules' so maybe you could engage with this person and say it's not allowed, but get them their own special badge or something

Have you spoken to them?

It's a bit of a difficult one, as you can't always tell the harmless hobbyists who know they're play-acting from the unwell fantasists who could 'turn' at any time or the outright frauds with deliberate intent to personally gain money/power/thrills from it.

I'm also reminded of the recent case of the creepy old man who stands outside various local schools at start and finish time, dressed in the girls' uniform for the relevant school.

Some good ideas here, thank you

Like Wham masquerading as a Pilots in “Club Tropicana”?

Something like that 😂

If the uniforms are provided by the company then they belong to the company.
Whoever sold them on eBay has stolen them.
So I suppose that's one legal route....this person is wearing stolen property.

Very very odd

That made me roar.😂😂

That was my initial thought