Who Handles Your Money?

[casseopeia]

I am currently working as an unpaid intern for a local industrial arts school so that I can take some welding classes and have the fee waived. Part of my duties were recently expanded to include charging credit cards, approving checks and taking cash for studio rents and tuition and fees from the students and faculty. Even as a business owner I did not handle the dirty money end of things. I had an ex-husband, business development employee, and accountant for the smarmy end of business, for which all three of them were particularly well suited.

I started thinking “why wouldn’t they give this to a paid employee, and not an intern who has less that 40 hours of time under their belt at the school and who was not subjected to a criminal background check, or even a DMV review (not that anything would have turned up)?” As a former business owner, I ran DMV and criminal background checks and credit reports for anyone who handled the money. I still managed to have two employees steal from the business and an ex-husband who off-shored company proceeds. How do they know I would not use this sensitive information for myself (I wouldn’t)? How do the people who give up their credit card information know that I don’t just casually toss the information into the garbage? I don’t. I run it through a shredder.

I thought it was fairly common to have the people who handled the money for a company to be vetted to a higher degree than even the technical staff. So mostly a question for small business owners; do you pay more attention to the character of your business and accounting staff or do they get about the same level of checking as an engineer?

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[JLSeagull]

Most engineers are honest and ethical. However in my industry most companies and clients request authorization to run a background check. Surely the company can run the background check without authorization but that is their game.

It seems that many accountants are paid for their creativity. Use an accountant that others have used with satisfaction. Why not run the same sort of background check on any financial help?

 

[casseopeia]

My experience has been that most technical staff for the most part are honest. As an employer I had fairly small issues. One was with an architect who used a company credit card to gas up her own car. Not a huge infraction, but it was caught and apparently she felt so bad about it she quit. The other was a male engineer who spent a relatively large sum of money for dinner, $200, in Utah while he was out of town. My biggest question for him was where in the he!! can you go in Utah and spend $200 for dinner and not drink alcohol. But both of those are peanuts compared to the damaged caused by the people with their hands on the money.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[msquared48]

Money Launderers.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask

 

[PHovnanian]

Money Launderers.

Me too. My only source of spending money is what I find in the dryer lint trap. ;-)

 

[IRstuff]

Mail order, phone order, and most store transactions are done with people who are getting close to minimum wage, and unless they're Hispanic, not much in the way of background checks.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[MacGyverS2000]

...and unless they're Hispanic, not much in the way of background checks.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[monkeydog]

IRstuff,

So your saying if you call in an order and need to give your credit card, your safer if the clerk on the other end has a heavy hispanic accent - would have had a background check?

Don't the ones with heavy indian accents have background checks?

 

[casseopeia]

I took IRstuff's point as Hispanics being subjected unfairly to more frequent background checks. The only time I was required to do a background check was as a volunteer to work with the elderly, and then it was the whole 9 yards, fingerprints, DNA sample, and DMV record. They may have run a credit check as well. That was a requirement across the board. It didn't matter who you were. If you didn't agree with the procedures, you were not accepted as a volunteer.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[IRstuff]

In the US, you are legally required to run immigration status on all employees, but we know the reality is that it's often not done at all, and only Hispanics, and those that look "foreign" who get the brunt of even the most minimal background checks.

The only people who routinely get background checks are those with security clearances, but those are seldom found at POS terminals, unless they've been laid off from the Evil Empire, or the like.

Interestingly, I was involved in the background check of a neighbor, and the conversation boiled down to, "Do you know of any reason NOT to issue a clearance to your neighbor?" Apparently, the fact that we moved in 4 months prior and had only spoken to them about 3 times at all was not an important factor.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[KENAT]

I resent that IRstuff.

My first job out here in the States, the exulted position of 'Sales Associate' at a drug store, I got a background check.

Don't know how deep it was etc. but I got it.

I'm not Hispanic, and unless you count my apparently typically British fondness for blue checked shirts, I don't think I look particularly "foreign".

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[btrueblood]

Kenat,

They stood you against the wall and made sure your hair/face color didn't clash with the background.

 

[KENAT]

What hair?

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[patprimmer]

KENNAT

You did after all arrive from a country that was a former enemy.

In Aus we are also required to check work permits or citizenship status of employees, but it can be difficult.

Two cases I know of where there was a problem where:-

A young man of typical Anglo appearance with obviously English first language and a Scottish accent was arrested on our premises by immigration for having overstayed his visa. He was deported next day despite having a de-facto relationship and engaged to be married with an Aussie lady , however he applied for permanent residency and was granted and was both married and back at work within 6 months.

Another was a company employed a few Tongans. One was arrested for drunk and disorderly and being involved in a drunken brawl. He was deported, but despite his till then current visa, his employer was investigated. It was found that one lady there was working on her husbands visa by using her husbands name. As it was a tribal name, the gender was not apparent to us. No fines where issued in either case, but we where warned to take more care.

Regards
Pat
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[JLSeagull]

Perhaps Homeland Security increased testing requirements for refineries and petrochemical plants, especially if located on navigable coastal waters. Background checks and drug tests are routine. Companies are moving away from urine tests to hair tests. I think that hair follicles absorbs drug components that remain for longer periods than found by urine testing. Several plants require background checks. Also the forms that we sign indicate that we will be fired if they find anything. Still, we sign the form and continue to get paid.

When I see those contract scaffolders I certainly feel safer now. ;-)

 

[IRstuff]

KENAT,

Apparently, you got lucky and worked for one of the few companies that are actually following the law ;-) We've mostly gotten over the transgressions from previous centuries, and Beckham and Posh Spice make up some of that ground for some Americans.

I'm an immigrant as well, and had an annoying badge with red stripes at my first job at MacDac that indicated I was an "agent of a foreign power" even though I hadn't lived outside of the US since I was 2, and hadn't been outside of the US at all since I was 4.

In any case, dealing with monetary transactions used to be a somewhat exalted position when I was younger, even without a pay premium, but these days, you can't even find a cashier that can figure out the change for a $4.90 bill with $5.15 tendered, without the cash register doing the calculation for them. I think they reprogrammed the registers at golden arches after I tried to get that quarter in change from a cashier and they had to go to the manager to figure it out.

In any case, Cass is at least physically present in front of the customer, as contrasted to many mail-order houses that used incarcerated felons to process their credit card transactions.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[casseopeia]

Sometimes I'm present in front of the credit card holder, but most of the transactions are by phone. I write down the information on a form, enter data into several locations (hard copy and electronic data base) and do a remote 'card swipe'. And if you think all those safety checks are in place on your credit card number, think again. Usually I can blow past entering the secret code on the bag and the zip code where the credit card bills are received. The hand written forms are handed over to a regular staff person so that they do not lay around for anyone to pick up and take.

But like I said, I won't steal the information, or try to use the card, ever, no matter how desperate I ever got. I actually worry more that I'll screw something up that can't be fixed. Yesterday was so crazy and stressful at that place, I dropped a transferred call. Felt like an idiot. Here I am a registered professional architect with decades of office experience and managed to eff up what secretaries do hundreds of times a day. Gives me a whole new perspective on those unfortunate soles who do this kind of work for a living.





"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[KENAT]

A busy day at my 'sales associate' job, when the que at the register was several folks deep, the supervisor was busy with something else, everyone else was at lunch...

Pretty stressful.

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[MacGyverS2000]

cass,

Out of curiosity, what happens to those forms? Are they thrown away unshredded? Likely, and it's against the terms of the credit card agreement. If they're kept in a folder for some extended time period (or "forever"), that's also against the terms... not allowed to keep credit card info on file (though so many places seem to get away with it).

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[casseopeia]

MacGyvers,

I take any handwritten notes of my own and put them through a shredder the minute I finish filling in a school form. After I've completed the cc charge and data base update, or at the end of my shift, the written forms and cc receipts go to my supervisor. Only the written form has all of the information on it. What she does with them I do not know but I do not for one minute suspect that she or anyone else there is stealing the information. I was surprised that they trusted ME so much with what I consider extremely sensitive information without doing any kind of background check. I know they haven't checked anything because since I am not a paid employee, they did not collect my ss number or even a copy of my drivers license.

Then I called my even more paranoid/conspiracy-theorist brother who had me scared that they didn't actually trust me with the information. That in fact there was a grand conspiracy to defraud the credit card holders and blame the unpaid interns. My brother is still getting me back for dressing him up as a girl when he was young. He apparently is never going to let that go....



"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"