Industrial Tribunals Northern Ireland Decisions

 


Parker v The Rangers Shops Ltd (Unfair Dismissal) [2002] NIIT 3604_01 (3 May 2002)

THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS

CASE REF: 3604/01

APPLICANT: Rory Parker

RESPONDENT: The Rangers Shops Limited

DECISION

The unanimous decision of the Tribunal is that the applicant was unfairly dismissed and is entitled to compensation amounting to £18,234.40 as calculated in the attached Schedule.

Appearances:

The applicant was represented by Mr Nicholl of MSF Union.

The respondent was represented by Mr S Knowles of the respondent Company.

1. The Issues

The decision of the Tribunal given in summary form is as follows:-

1.1. The applicant who was born on 27 March 1970 and was employed as Regional Sales Manager for Northern Ireland of the respondent company responsible for the Stores in Belfast and Ballymena. He commenced his employment in August 1999.

1.2. The respondent explained to the Tribunal that over a period of about six weeks in the summer of 2001 a serious fraud had been perpetrated on the Belfast and Ballymena Stores of the respondent, involving the ordering of goods over the telephone by people who stated that they were credit card or switchcard holders. The so called card holder telephoned to the store and ordered goods to be picked up at a later date.

1.3. The respondent's customer service operating procedures stated that a credit card or switchcard transaction of this nature included the requirement that the signature of the customer should be obtained on the credit card slip. However as each order was taken by telephone it was not possible to obtain such a signature. The respondent stated that the staff had been directed that in the event of telephone orders such orders should be directed to Rangers Direct a different arm of the respondent's business which dealt with telephone orders. However for a number of years, as the Tribunal heard, the practice had been in Belfast and Ballymena to accept credit card sales over the telephone and to allow the goods to leave the stores without the signature of the customer on the credit card. An electronic check was automatically made on each occasion that the credit card number was entered into the system in the store. This was known as PDQ and was a check whereby the bank or credit card company was notified of the intended transaction and sanctioned it if everything was clear. However it appears that if the credit card had, for instance, been stolen, but not reported, or if a number of a credit card had been fraudulently obtained from the true owner and used in this way, the PDQ system would not show that there was a problem and the store would be notified that the credit card could be accepted.

1.4. The Tribunal accepted the evidence of the applicant that when he took over management of the Stores he was given some training in Glasgow but so far as dealing with credit cards and telephone orders were concerned he had followed the procedures which were shown to him by his predecessor Mark Montgomery, with whom he had worked for a year before he took over the Stores and who invariably accepted these credit card orders without signatures. The applicant considered that this was an exception to the ordinary operating procedure which did require a customers signature, when the card holder was in the store.

1.5. The Tribunal was shown a number of receipt cards from credit card transactions which were part of this particular fraud. On many of the slips were the words "Card Holder not present". This apparently was part of a software package provided by the respondent in its store and this particular wording had not been deleted from the package, with the result, in the opinion of the Tribunal, the staff, including the local Manager the applicant, were further lulled into a sense of security concerning the procedure for dealing with credit card transactions. This sense of security was heightened by the existence of the PDQ equipment which seemed to the applicant and his staff to eliminate any risk in the use of credit cards once the appropriate check had been made.

1.6. The Tribunal were shown an email which had been sent by the respondent to the Managers of the various Rangers Football Club Stores dealing with phone orders for "away kits". The applicant explained that because of the computer failure in the branch, which was confirmed by another witness, the email did not actually reach him. However even if the email had reached the applicant the Tribunal hold that the email was completely ambiguous as it suggested that it was dealing with posting out orders for kits. The email stated "If someone phones your store and requests stock to be put aside for uplift. Fine. No problem your store should satisfy this order and take the sale." The respondent argued that this still meant that the proper procedures should be adopted whereby the credit card should be signed by the person collecting the goods. However this was not made clear in the email and as the practice of accepting orders for goods over the telephone had been going on for such a long time the Tribunal hold that the email would not of itself have alerted the store manager to the fact that this type of transaction was not an exception to the rule, that all credit card transactions required a signature.

1.7. The Tribunal heard that the credit card receipts were kept and sent to Glasgow each week for audit purposes. However the credit card receipts were never checked in Glasgow to see whether signatures had been obtained or not. As this method of credit card transaction had been ongoing for a number of years it seems to the Tribunal extraordinary that the credit card receipts were not occasionally checked and the lack of signatures noticed. If such had been the case it would have been easy for someone in the accounts department to have notified the stores that accepting credit card orders without a signature was not acceptable and must stop. This did not happen.

1.8. For all these reasons it is quite clear to the Tribunal that the practice of the respondents was to accept unsigned credit card orders on the telephone and leave the goods for collection at the store. This has been ongoing for many years and appears to have been an exception to the customer service operating procedures.

1.9. In this case upon the respondent hearing of the substantial fraud that had been perpetrated on the Store and indeed on another Football Club Store in Belfast, initiated an investigation. After carrying out a proper investigation and disciplinary procedure the respondent summarily dismissed the applicant as the Store Manager responsible for the Northern Ireland area on the grounds "That he had authorised approximately 25 transactions of high value during a two to three week period allowing product to leave the Store without the required credit card signature." This was, in the view of the Company and the Appeal hearing held by the Retail Director Mr Nick Peel, gross negligence from a senior employee.

1.10. The Tribunal reminded itself that it was not to substitute its own view of the applicant's conduct for that of the respondent but had to decide if the dismissal was within a band of reasonable responses of a reasonable employer. In this case the Tribunal find that the decision to dismiss the applicant was unreasonable and thus unfair.

1.11. The decision of the Tribunal is that the respondent had not made it clear to its local Manager or staff that this type of transaction was not acceptable. The respondent had allowed this exception to the procedures to carry on for many years and it was only when something went wrong that the respondent looked for someone to blame and blamed the Store Manager. The Tribunal hold that the dismissal is unfair and award compensation as set out in the Schedule.

1.12. The Tribunal heard that the applicant, after a period of unemployment, has obtained a job with another employer at a wage of £12,000.00 per annum gross £8,000.00 per annum net. The Tribunal therefore calculated his net loss until the date of hearing and his future loss of 97 weeks at this net difference. The Tribunal consider that at the end of two years from the applicant getting the new job his salary should equate to what he was earning with the respondent. Furthermore the Tribunal award one year private use of a car (estimated at £3,000.00) and one year's loss of bonus (estimated at £1,200.00) as additional compensation. The new employer may give the applicant a car at a later date and there is no certainty about a bonus. The bonus had in the past been greater but tax would have to be deduced so a figure of £1,200.00 is considered fair by the Tribunal.

1.13. RECOUPMENT OF BENEFIT FROM AWARDS

Your attention is drawn to the notice below which forms part of the decision of the tribunal.

This award is subject to the provisions of the Employment Protection (Recoupment of Jobseeker's Allowance and Income Support) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996.

1.14. This is a relevant decision for the purposes of the Industrial Tribunal (Interest) Order (Northern Ireland) 1990.

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Date and place of hearing: 26 March 2002, Belfast

Date decision recorded in register and issued to parties: 3 May 2002

SCHEDULE

Basic Award £

Maximum £230.00 x 2 460.00

Compensation Award

13 September 2001 – 31 January 2002

20 weeks when applicant was unemployed loss of net wage

of £237.70 4754.00

1 February 2002 – 26 March 2002

7 weeks when applicant received only £153.85 per week

instead of £237.70 being a loss of £83.85 per week 586.95

Future loss estimated as

97 weeks @ £83.85 per week 8133.45

Compensation for loss of bonus over two years 1200.00

Value of car over one year 3000.00

Loss of Statutory Rights 100.00

£18,234.40

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