Trouble at the Post Office

JAYJO

What are you gonna do with £80 worth of 1st class stamps?

57Deluxe

/\ sell them on ebay for a small discount!

Hootsmon

Teetonetal said:

You paid for something, but cannot prove you paid. You have no hope and it's your error as you left without proof.

Maybe the girl took it.
Maybe the manager took it.
Maybe you are lying and are trying to get £80 of free service.

Cctv might show you there, but unlikely to show the value of the transaction.

This is why cash can be bad.

Both the Manager and the young girl do not dispute the fact I paid them the money they agree I handed the money over and THEY lost it. They also say that I am not due a refund because the till was not over to the tune of 80 quid 

I spoke to CAB and have sent a letter of complaint off to the PO complaints office. According to the CAB manager the PO shop is not a law unto themselves and will be accountable. He also appeared interested when he discovered that at no time was I offered a hand written receipt. He could see that I was pissed with myself for leaving without a receipt but insisted I was entirely blameless in this situation........we will see 

Funkfingers

hootsmon said:
the Manager and the young girl do not dispute the fact I paid them the money. they agree I handed the money over and THEY lost it. They also say that I am not due a refund because the till was not over to the tune of 80 quid.

I suspect that the staff are correct about not owing a refund, per se.

The pertinent question would be, do they agree/admit that they failed to forward your payment to the relevant utility providers?

For accountancy purposes, they ought to have records of monies in and monies out. Perhaps, it is time that their regional office gave them a thorough audit?

skunkwerx

Phil_aka_Pip said:

skunkwerx said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

never leave without a receipt. take your money back if you have to

Dont do that!!

I meant if they won't give you a receipt, say "I want my money back and you can cancel the transaction"

Oops my bad! Yeah I got the wrong end of the stick there in my sleepy state! 

TheBigDipper

Kilgore said:

TheBigDipper said:

<snip>

I think you're missing my point. Historically there have been two types of PO. Crown (owned by the PO) and sub PO (essentially a franchise). The majority have always been Sub PO's. As with any franchise, there are stringent rules on operation and a franchise can be withdrawn for mismanagement.

The PO still provides a high degree of oversight and has an active internal fraud dept. I agree that an occassional conplaint is unlikely to get much result, but a pattern of complaints will be investigated.

OK. Fair enough...

77ric

Presumably as the girl who served you had to call the manager, the manger wasn't on the the premises, ask her to check the past rotas or wage sheets to check which days it could possibly be. Insist that they look at any staff declaration sheets the branch may use.  Is this particular post office part of a chain? housed within a convenience store perhaps? SPAR, McColls Etc?

Did the girl use the horizon system (big terminal) or was it done on the paystation terminal, (small terminal not much bigger than a chip[ and pin terminal)?

Post office require all stock units to have a cash declaration done at least twice a day, if the girl tried to use the Horizon system then the next cash dec would be £80 up unless the transactions completed. alternatively if if was done on the the Paystation  terminal, there is no link between the Horizon terminal and that and any cash taken for payment is kept separate  from the the cash in the drawer until the system sends transactions to the horizon central system usually the next day although it can often be a few days later. only at that point would your money be added in to the cash drawer and the system can account for it.

No Post office I know keeps the daily cash dec records as they aren't required the horizon system keeps a running balance of what is in any of the stock units/safes etc. but insist that the manager checks the Nett discrepancy from the top of any and all Balance period reports or trading period reports that have been carried out since the beginning of the month. balances are usually done weekly at a minimum but can be done daily in some branches, when rolled over into the next BP the cash dec is reset to zero discrepancy so if there was a discrepancy it would show on those reports as a Nett discrepancy. at the end of the trading period which is every 4 weeks and always on a Wednesday a total for the previous 4 weeks would show. now if your transactions were carried out on the Paystation and the information wasn't sent to the horizon system before the roll over in the next BP to TP the it would show in the next BP/TP although that would be unusual to roll over without that information coming down.

At the TP rollover the horizon system asks for any discrepancy to be made good, sometimes this is assigned centrally in the case of a a franchise operated by a chain, presumably any gains are balanced in the system and paid centrally to the branch but I'm not sure as its more usual to have a minus figure as opposed to a gain.


I'll continue to think this one through and if I come up with any more ideas I'll post in here again.

I am a store and PO local manager, so I know a bit more about the accounting than most.

mr-mac

Answer will be till added up cos the £80 either doesn't go in till or they pop that £80 for the payment machine has been taken then pop through machine seperately.  However if they compare the days total that went through machine to what till says then it won't tally to each other.

mr-mac

ICBM said:

I had a similar experience in a Cash Generator, although it was deliberate dishonesty rather than a possible mistake. I *know* that the person behind the counter swiped a £10 note I had put there to pay for something, when I turned away briefly, but I can't prove it. The police weren't interested, and the shop manager wouldn't let me see the CCTV without the police present.

It's going to be very difficult or impossible to get anywhere, and the most annoying thing is that whoever has pocketed it knows that and knows they've got away with it.

Fuck I'd have said I'll stand here and make a scene all day till you go check the CCTV and come back and rectify the situation (then add i have a week off so will be back every day if i have to)... Call police if you like but then they'll be present and you can show me footage of the theft...

Hootsmon

@77ric

Many thanks for taking the time to write up that reply. TBH I am struggling to understand it all but I will pass the reply on to my eager CAB worker

The PO is contained within a Spar/Nice set up , I am not sure at this point who exactly. The unit she used for the cash transactions was broader than a PC keyboard but not just as long

ICBM

mr-mac said:

Fuck I'd have said I'll stand here and make a scene all day till you go check the CCTV and come back and rectify the situation (then add i have a week off so will be back every day if i have to)... Call police if you like but then they'll be present and you can show me footage of the theft...

I didn't have the time. Just not worth it anyway, when the manager is totally stonewalling and refusing to cooperate - I suspect he knew full well what had happened too, and that if I had managed to get the police involved the CCTV would mysteriously have been wiped. I just put it down as a lesson learned.

mr-mac

77ric said:

Presumably as the girl who served you had to call the manager, the manger wasn't on the the premises, ask her to check the past rotas or wage sheets to check which days it could possibly be. Insist that they look at any staff declaration sheets the branch may use.  Is this particular post office part of a chain? housed within a convenience store perhaps? SPAR, McColls Etc?

Did the girl use the horizon system (big terminal) or was it done on the paystation terminal, (small terminal not much bigger than a chip[ and pin terminal)?

Post office require all stock units to have a cash declaration done at least twice a day, if the girl tried to use the Horizon system then the next cash dec would be £80 up unless the transactions completed. alternatively if if was done on the the Paystation  terminal, there is no link between the Horizon terminal and that and any cash taken for payment is kept separate  from the the cash in the drawer until the system sends transactions to the horizon central system usually the next day although it can often be a few days later. only at that point would your money be added in to the cash drawer and the system can account for it.

No Post office I know keeps the daily cash dec records as they aren't required the horizon system keeps a running balance of what is in any of the stock units/safes etc. but insist that the manager checks the Nett discrepancy from the top of any and all Balance period reports or trading period reports that have been carried out since the beginning of the month. balances are usually done weekly at a minimum but can be done daily in some branches, when rolled over into the next BP the cash dec is reset to zero discrepancy so if there was a discrepancy it would show on those reports as a Nett discrepancy. at the end of the trading period which is every 4 weeks and always on a Wednesday a total for the previous 4 weeks would show. now if your transactions were carried out on the Paystation and the information wasn't sent to the horizon system before the roll over in the next BP to TP the it would show in the next BP/TP although that would be unusual to roll over without that information coming down.

At the TP rollover the horizon system asks for any discrepancy to be made good, sometimes this is assigned centrally in the case of a a franchise operated by a chain, presumably any gains are balanced in the system and paid centrally to the branch but I'm not sure as its more usual to have a minus figure as opposed to a gain.


I'll continue to think this one through and if I come up with any more ideas I'll post in here again.

I am a store and PO local manager, so I know a bit more about the accounting than most.

Horizon won't show discrepancy if it was straight to the small terminal as transaction didn't go through on small terminal.  But the cash drawer and horizon should be £80 out from each other at some point

Hootsmon

@77ric

My wife went into the store today with an official request for CCTV footage.

My wife asked the girl if it was her who took the money from my husband and she replied yes.

If a 30 day rule exists with the footage there is some dates not yet expired ,

so my wife suggested the girl contact her boss with the request immediately and the girl said she would contact her boss when she was good and ready and besides her boss was at this moment at the airport on the start of her holidays

I had a conversation with her boss a few days prior and she informed me she was going on holiday on Monday 02nd July

77ric

Sounds like it went through on the horizon system. I’d suggest the next point of contact up the chain going past the shop manager and straight to head office. This will be of concern to them as the possibility of a thief in the staff or possibly even the manager, bear in mind some post offices can have several tens of thousands of pounds on the premises at any one time. Also if it was my shop I’d be hugely concerned about the cctv not working. We have a camera positioned over the counter that makes it possible to see what exactly has been passed over the counter. 

mr-mac

Yeah even pub other half's mum has had crappy CCTV in it but camera above till easily shows how much and how many notes are counted in.

Hopefully you'll get this sorted now official requests are going in.  Maybe now its obvious you ain't going away the manager will actually get their freeking I finger out.

mr-mac

Also see there mention of shop staff and manager.  Is there a shop owner??? Business owner? Something above manager? It is quite possible and maybe involving them in whole story would help you.

Just thought it was maybe worth checking