A recent Court case has highlighted the importance of employers periodically vetting all staff, including junior employee, who have access to confidential (customer) information because any misuse could cause serious financial and reputational damage to the employer. Included in any vetting should be checks to ascertain whether staff are being threatened by external parties as in this instance the HSBC Call Centre worker

News article 

A female ex HBOS employee aged 23 aided a criminal gang to steal £1.3m from HBOS and HSBC by passing confidential customer information to them. A HSBC service centre worker was acquitted after he was forced to betray his employers following repeated threats and being slashed with a bottle.

The Court heard that the defendants and 'persons unknown' - including a number of other bank insiders - were involved in a 'highly organised and systematic operation' to defraud the banks and their customers.

Funds were siphoned from legitimate accounts into new ones set up using either telephone banking systems or the internet. This was done with the help of both false passports and bogus utility bills based on confidential information smuggled from the banks. To avoid detection the new accounts were set up in the names of genuine customers which enabled stolen cash to eventually end up in 'friendly third party accounts' before being laundered.

Because of the methods employed by the gang, genuine customers were often unaware of the theft and fraud until a random check on their accounts revealed the swift depreciation of their balances, 

©employright.net 04

February 2007

Date : 16-02-2007