Digging up the Truth On Shifty Plumber:
If you are suspicious that an employee is being disloyal in any way whatsoever then this story will certainly be of interest to you. It looks at how one of our Perth clients, a small private building company, caught one of its plumbers cheating a work cover claim whilst also double dipping the company at the same time.
Frank Howard was employed as an on-site contract plumber for our client for over five years. It was Frank’s job to install and maintain all plumbing work for the companies many various building projects – from domestic to commercial as well as industrial. Because of his quality workmanship and apparent knack for fixing things, Frank was also in charge of maintaining all hydraulics for the company.
As a long-term employee for the builder, Howard was also entitled to a company phone and car. It was a fair deal so long as Frank didn’t abuse his rights. He would come to work, carry out the day’s tasks and then head home to his family. Well, at least that is what his supervisor thought… until Frank put in a hefty work cover claim for an injury that allegedly took place onsite at one of their jobs and this is when things started to fall apart.
Wanting to ensure everything was above board, the building company turned to Precise Investigation to delve into Frank’s work cover claim further. Our professional team of investigators immediately devoted all of their time and energy into finding the answers the builder needed. To do this, we followed Frank Howard’s every move. Not a complex situation when Frank’s company car is fitted with a global positioning system (GPS) tracker that belongs to his employer… our client. The GPS navigation system informed us of Frank’s exact whereabouts and, better still, at exactly what time of the day.
After employing 100-hours of solid investigation techniques, our team soon found that the company’s hunch was right on the money and Frank Howard’s claim was nothing more than a complete and utter sham. Evidence from the GPS found that Howard had been using the company car for his own personal use (such as going to the gym) as well as to drive to and from other building sites for his own private work on the side – all of which was going on during the company’s work hours!
It gets worse! These activities were also taking place days before and after his work cover claim. Our investigation found that Howard was actually boxing at the gym the day before the doctor’s appointment… a work cover appointment whereby he stated he was unfit to work due to injury. Then, the day after his doctor’s appointment, he was lifting rubble onsite at one of his own private side jobs.
The facts soon mounted up and thanks to the bucket load of verifiable evidence found by our team at Precise Investigation, we were able to prove Frank Howard’s story as illegitimate and false. Needless to say, once the case was terminated the claim was thrown straight out the window.
If you would like to have one of our highly trained field operatives, and dedicated support team, help you to gather the evidence you need to overcome any number of issues, whether personal, domestic or corporate, please get in touch with us as soon as possible.
Call Precise Investigation today on 1300 856 011 for a professional, Private Investigation Service
PLEASE NOTE: To protect the privacy of our clients, all names and addresses have been changed to protect the innocent and the accused. We have chosen fictitious names, addresses and photographs to represent real people and their stories.
Image credit: Thank you Wikipedia: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
