Friend’s boyfriend has overcharged and didn’t complete work

[MotherhoodRising]

A friend of mine’s boyfriend had moved in with her a year ago and decided to sit at home taking handouts from her rather than getting a job. Knowing it was causing their relationship strain, I gave him temporary work in my small business on a self employed basis. We agreed a day rate for 3 days a week 9-5:30 and set certain tasks that needed to be completed.
Just before lockdown, I was discussing with him the process of invoices being inputted and how payments Couldn’t be made until I had Checked and approved each invoice.
He replied with “okay but I logged on and paid myself by the way”.

I was so taken aback, and tbh quite enraged that a complete stranger to my business and casual worker had dug out my account log in details from paperwork, logged in, and transferred to his personal account £1000 without submitting a single invoice or allowing me to check the work or approve the invoices, that because it was my friends boyfriend I just went quiet and said we’d pick this conversation up later. Fortunately 2 days later we went into lockdown and there was a natural end to his work there.

He left the historic invoices as we closed for lockdown and when I checked through he’d charged me for days he wasn’t rota’d in for (he’d seemingly gone in on my days off when there would have been no work to complete and then charged me for them), charged me full days for days he started late and left early, and when I went through the tasks that had been set I had to spend the first week of lockdown redoing them because they either hadn’t been done or had been done incorrectly.

He’d paid himself for work that wasn’t completed, hours he wasn’t there and days I’d asked him not to work. Then submitted another invoice for the last two days before lockdown and chased me for it til I said, he hadn’t pro rata’d the days he started late or finished early so wasn’t actually owed.

Again, mindful he was my friends boyfriend I chose not to say the real feelings that the work hadn’t been completed, he’d paid himself for days that weren’t asked of him on my days off or the fact that he’d spent most of the time on his phone to his mates so no wonder work wasn’t done.

I figured I’d have the chat face to face after lockdown to clear the air. Unfortunately, my friend has Now decided to ignore me the whole time and a conversation is due. How would you approach it?

I'm amazed you didn't go straight to the police. Wtaf
He broke into your accounts and PAID HIMSELF!!

I’m happy to provide you with the full details

No, she cannot do this. As previously explained, it's a breach of data protection. It doesn't matter if he was an employee or a self-employed contractor brought in to do a specific set of jobs - data protection still applies.

Op ,your clearly in the wrong job.they are both laughing at you .
You have behaved irresponsibly,you could not make this up ,you need to go to the police

You need to be professional. Don't discuss it with her at all other than to say there is no money owed. Discuss it with him. Tell her she needs to speak to him as, as an employer, you need to be professional.

How on earth did he pay himself? My business bank requires jumping through quite a few hoops when setting up a new payee

That’s a good point, I get a text when this happens.

you don't seem to explain why you handed your bank details to somebody?

*How on earth did he pay himself? My business bank requires jumping through quite a few hoops when setting up a new payee

That’s a good point, I get a text when this happens.*

I think OP is embarrassed to admit that she handed somebody she barely knew her bank details, because she believed her friend's boyfriend wouldn't steal from her (which is exactly what he ended up doing).

OP, you need to take responsibility here, I would never be so careless as a business owner. Have you changed the password yet?

The rule is, never employ a friend, or do any work for a friend (unless it is an unpaid favour). There is always confusion between the friendship and the business.

As others have said, get your position re work done/money owed in relation to him documented. Send it to him.

Keep a paper trail. You run the risk of him deciding to sue you through the small claims court. Ever seen any of those 'The Bailiffs are Coming' type programs? All too often the the debtor doesnt really owe the money just didnt keep on top of their paperwork.

I'd definitely go with sending him a letter and letting her know its sent (so hopefully she can intercept it), but gently letting her know you can't discuss it due to data protection. If a really good friend I'd consider sitting down with them both so she can hear what you have to say to him and draw her own conclusions if he refuses to talk in front of her.

My bet is that he's still spending off her and bleating that you haven't paid him ANYTHING.

Police for this. Failing that, Judge Rinder!

You’ve been pretty stupid OP
You gave a lazy dishonest sponger a job (and it sounds Like he WAS employed so be careful that doesn’t bite you on the arse as well) because he was in a relationship with a friend. He has stolen from you and basically taken the piss and now SHE wants an explanation. They are a pair of CF and you should have no more to do with either of them
And start running your business properly

How about you say what you said here on your first post to her during your conversation.

Then sort yourself out. Change your passwords. Don't leave things laying around so that someone you barely know can login to your account and pay money without you knowing it. Wise up a bit. There are lots of people who will take advantage of people who are lax with money/security/ etc.... learn from this and don't ever let it happen again.

You gave a lazy dishonest sponger a job (and it sounds Like he WAS employed so be careful that doesn’t bite you on the arse as well) because he was in a relationship with a friend.

He wasn't 'employed'. She's already explained he was on a day rate for 3 days and was required to submit invoices in order to be paid. I'm guessing there wasn't even a contract in place, so not sure why it would bite her on the arse. Regardless, even employees can be charged with theft, if indeed they stole from their employer.
I would classify him as a casual employee rather than an actual employee. Not that it makes a difference with regards to what he's done. He's stolen from her. It's as simple as that.

She doesn’t get to choose if he’s employed or not. There are criteria she needs to check on the HMRC website and even then it’s not clear cut
Saying he was getting a day rate and was supposed to send invoices alone does not make him self employed, it’s a lot more complicated than that.
So yes, it could bite her on the arse if she is reported to HMRC.
I am not defending this man, I’m just making OP aware of another issue that could crop up and that she should be careful of for the future.

Personally, i would have an honest conversation with your friend whether the lockdown is over or not as you can still have a conversation from 2 metres apart by the sounds of it she knows her boyfriend is lazy and not dependable hence him only just finding employment now after letting her foot the bill for all this time. Most likely the main issue for your friend is she has listened to her boyfriend and thinks you owe him money and most likely is just fed up with paying his half of the bills all the time. I would have a conversation about what the hourly rate for the job is and how many ACTUAL HOURS he completed. Surely, she can not be silly enough to argue with the facts and if she does and takes the side of her boyfriend i would close the door on this particular friendship as you were doing her a favour out of the kindness of your heart.

@Hoppinggreen Pardon? In that case, anybody could claim they are employed by a firm when they're not. As I said, it's doubtful he had any kind of contractual agreement in place - even contractors (which I'm guessing is what he was if he was self-employed) are required to have one of these. He's logged into her bank account and paid himself and this is theft. She didn't approve an invoice, or approve a payment to be made to him. How he came to have those log in details we won't know since OP appears to have glossed over this fact, claiming he deciphered these via "paperwork left lying around"...??

I work as an Operations Manager at an SME which includes all finance and HR duties too. I think I have a good understanding of what I'm talking about in terms of what constitutes an employee and what doesn't.

Congratulations, I also have a good idea about what constitutes an employee or not. Despite both of us having this knowledge whether this freeloader was an employee or not isn’t our call, it’s up to HMRC if there was ever an investigation ( thankfully pretty unlikely)
I have just spent some time doing an IR35 review on some self employed contracts and just having a contract saying you are SE won’t cut it.
I know IR35 has been postponed due to Corona but as I am sure you know the CEST tool on the HMRC website is a good resource to use to check. Many companies have moved contractors inside IR35 already despite the postponement for Private companies
For example, does he have other clients, can he choose his hours, does he use his own equipment and probably most importantly can he substitute? The substitution clause is very important
However, this wasn’t the point of the thread and hopefully OP has had the advice she needs

@Hoppinggreen You're right, it's not the point of this thread, so why mention it in the first place when it has no relevance whatsoever? Or are you saying employees allowed to steal from their employers? He was supposed to check with her before making any payments, as I am required to do too. I'd be disciplined if I went against those instructions, and if I made unauthorised payments to my personal bank account (!!!) I'd be rightly dismissed. So maybe stop scaremongering her into believing she's the one that is going to get into trouble. He stole from the business account. That's the simple fact here.

I don’t understand this at all. How on earth did he have access to your bank account to transfer money and pay himself. Nobody but you should be able to do that.

Reading the OP the sequence seems to be that he paid himself and then was told after that all invoices had to be approved by her.

So he didnt breach instructions because that instruction wasnt in place at the time he paid himself.

OP needs to be very careful about not paying him his last invoice. Given that she tacitly accepted the previous work because she 'went quiet' she has effectively said she was prepared to accept that level of service from him.

You have unwisely paid up front, he has done a half-arsed job but you havent said anything. He has now billed you for the rest of the job. Technically you may well owe him given that you tacitly accepted the standard of work already paid for.

I would pay him and learn from the experience.

I didn’t think I was scaremongering- apologies to OP if I have worried her.
My point was simply to alert her to something that this man might do that’s all. Whether he was an employee, contractor, friend whatever, of course he’s not entitled to steal from her and at no point have I said he was.

@GnomeDePlume Not entirely sure how you've come to that conclusion based on OP's post... I read from the below that he wasn't tasked with any payment processing tasks prior to their conversation below.

Just before lockdown, I was discussing with him the process of invoices being inputted and how payments Couldn’t be made until I had Checked and approved each invoice.
He replied with “okay but I logged on and paid myself by the way”

@Smallgoon fair point. What it doesnt negate is that the OP has rather meekly accepted what has happened which does muddy the waters in terms of whether or not the OP has a remedy in law.

I agree that OP has been very vague about how this person came to have the bank details. Seems to me that they trusted him with the details not realising he'd actually steal. Lesson learnt the hard way. And what a lovely boyfriend her friend has...