Can I discipline an employee who has fallen for a scam?

Your investigation must be objective

Scams are unfortunately a fact of life nowadays but if this happens in work can you hold your employee liable?

To discipline you would need to show that disciplinary action is reasonable and justified in all the circumstances.

This is going to fall back to the training you have provided and the procedures that you have in place for authorising/authenticating transactions.

We get it, this is personal but no matter how you feel about your employee’s actions and their part in you losing money, your investigation must be objective.

You need to know exactly how it happened and only from this investigation can you determine the appropriateness of disciplinary action.

Many scams are complex and undetectable.

The exception is where the scam was so amateurish that a reasonable person would have realised something was amiss.

These are few and far between though.

Scammers are professionals and we are human.

Providing your employee has followed internal company procedures to the letter, there is unlikely to be justification for disciplinary action.

For most employees, just knowing they are responsible for you losing money is likely to be punishment in itself.

Take the opportunity to strengthen internal processes to stop it happening again.