Woman stole 760k from employer and spent it on handbags

RandRuns

BattleCorp wrote: »

I don't know the full details of how the money was taken but here's an easy example of how to do it and not raise eyebrows with the Auditors.

Set up a dummy service supplier. Do fake invoices from them and make the payments for those fake invoices into an account you control. Hey presto, you've just nicked money from your employer and it's unlikely that an auditor would pick up on that. How would they know from looking at a balance sheet that the supplier is fake?

That said, if someone inside the organisation was paying attention, it would be much harder to get away with crap like that.

I could see that getting past the auditors if it was a company or organisation turning over millions, with lots of suppliers, but an organisation as small as the donegal education centre is unlikely to have a large number of suppliers, and the amounts that went missing must have been a noticable percentage of it's turnover, not to mention of it's supplier invoices. It is telling that when the new director was appointed, she smelled a rat straight away.

suicide_circus

Maybe the previous director had no nostrils

RandRuns

suicide_circus wrote: »

Maybe the previous director had no nostrils

And an expensive taste in what went up them.

Danzy

If you believe it was all her then I've a handbag to sell you.

Earthhorse

Leg End Reject wrote: »

You'd wonder what funding an education centre receives if it takes time to miss just over 3 quarters of a million.

All the designer stuff just left in bags too, bizarre.

Ironically, the money was meant to be spent on educating the accountants who in turn would have spotted the fraud much earlier.

BattleCorp

RandRuns wrote: »

I could see that getting past the auditors if it was a company or organisation turning over millions, with lots of suppliers, but an organisation as small as the donegal education centre is unlikely to have a large number of suppliers, and the amounts that went missing must have been a noticable percentage of it's turnover, not to mention of it's supplier invoices. It is telling that when the new director was appointed, she smelled a rat straight away.

An auditor looks at figures on a balance sheet. They don't vet suppliers.

I 100% agree that it should have been spotted years earlier but that's the local management's fault, and not the auditors.

RandRuns

BattleCorp wrote: »

An auditor looks at figures on a balance sheet. They don't vet suppliers.

I 100% agree that it should have been spotted years earlier but that's the local management's fault, and not the auditors.

Your wrong about an auditor just looking at figures on a balance sheet.
Their duty is to "to verify that the records are an accurate and fair representation of the company's transactions, and involves obtaining evidence about the financial statements sufficient to give reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement"

Auditors get away with murder in Ireland. They are never held responsible for dereliction of their duties.

BattleCorp

RandRuns wrote: »

Your wrong about an auditor just looking at figures on a balance sheet.
Their duty is to "to verify that the records are an accurate and fair representation of the company's transactions, and involves obtaining evidence about the financial statements sufficient to give reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement"

Auditors get away with murder in Ireland. They are never held responsible for dereliction of their duties.

My point is that they don't (and aren't expected to) go forensically through every single invoice and vet every single supplier to verify if the invoice is genuine or not.

Some companies can have thousands of invoices every year so there's not a hope of them all (or even a significant portion) being checked.

RandRuns

BattleCorp wrote: »

My point is that they don't (and aren't expected to) go forensically through every single invoice and vet every single supplier to verify if the invoice is genuine or not.

Some companies can have thousands of invoices every year so there's not a hope of them all (or even a significant portion) being checked.

Not in this case though. The organisation involved is quite small, and €760k is a large percentage of their turnover. Any auditor worthy of the name should have spotted something amiss, especially considering the thief appears to be utterly incompetent, and hardly would have done a great job of hiding it.

Auditors, especially those from the Big 5 firms, are a protected class in Ireland, like solicitors.

Pkiernan

Hopefully she'll learn her lesson from the suspended sentence she will undoubtedly receive.

RandRuns

Pkiernan wrote: »

Hopefully she'll learn her lesson from the suspended sentence she will undoubtedly receive.

If she does get put away, I'd imagine designer handbags would be great currency in a womens prison. She'll be running the place within a week.

BattleCorp

Pkiernan wrote: »

Hopefully she'll learn her lesson from the suspended sentence she will undoubtedly receive.

She's already been sentenced. Three years with one suspended.......so two years in jail. She won't do two years of course. She'll be unlucky if she spends more than a year behind bars.

furiousox

760k for a year in jail?
Tempting....:D

colm_mcm

Is there any indication of what where she would live if she went through with selling her house as suggested in the article, to pay back some of the money?

BattleCorp

furiousox wrote: »

760k for a year in jail?
Tempting....:D

I'm curious. She said to the judge that she was selling her house to pay back some of what she stole. I'll bet that she won't pay back a penny of it.

The best that can happen is that the State get the handbags etc. and sell them off to collect some of the debt.

bossdrum

BattleCorp wrote: »

An auditor looks at figures on a balance sheet. They don't vet suppliers.

I 100% agree that it should have been spotted years earlier but that's the local management's fault, and not the auditors.

Auditors do go through suppliers. Any supplier being paid €10k a month would be one of the first to be checked.
I worked as an auditor and I wish people would stop making excuses for this level of incompetence.

BattleCorp

bossdrum wrote: »

Auditors do go through suppliers. Any supplier being paid €10k a month would be one of the first to be checked.
I worked as an auditor and I wish people would stop making excuses for this level of incompetence.

I accept your points.

That said, we don't know if dodgy invoices is how she stole the money. I was just using that as an example of one way to steal money from your employer.

I'd be seriously questioning the directors/managers as to why they didn't spot the theft. They should be keeping an even closer eye on things than the auditors.

Potatoeman

Setup a company for training and put teachers down for fake courses they don’t even know about. Then manage the company and invoices yourself.

The education board have a lot to learn.

Padre_Pio

Mr Nolan said: "This has been a catastrophic event in her life.

She has lost her house, lost her family, has no friends and is now a pariah in the town of Donegal.

And so f*ckin what? She brought all this on herself. And now she wants sympathy?

Potatoeman

From Parada to pariah.

BattleCorp

Padre_Pio wrote: »

And so f*ckin what? She brought all this on herself. And now she wants sympathy?

She hasn't lost her house as of yet either. Nothing to stop her from stopping the sale of the house.

RandRuns

BattleCorp wrote: »

She hasn't lost her house as of yet either. Nothing to stop her from stopping the sale of the house.

Your dead right on that - wouldn't surprise me if the house sale was an attempt to get a suspended sentence (why is it not sold before now, the case has been in the works for over a year), and now that she is doing time, I wouldn't be surprised if the house sale is off. It's not like it was part of the sentence, so nobody can make her sell it.

Purple Mountain

The problem with selling the house is, where would she live then?
Would she be straight onto HAP then, costing more to the state?

colm_mcm

Purple Mountain wrote: »

The problem with selling the house is, where would she live then?
Would she be straight onto HAP then, costing more to the state?

She has accommodation sorted for the short term anyway

ILoveYourVibes

It says she didn't even open the stuff she just kept it in black bags in her house????

I guess she couldn't use the stuff or been seen with it because people would be asking where she got the money from for it etc.

BAFFLING!

I don't understand people!

jimbobaloobob

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

It says she didn't even open the stuff she just kept it in black bags in her house????

I guess she couldn't use the stuff or been seen with it because people would be asking where she got the money from for it etc.

BAFFLING!

I don't understand people!

It’s likely she doesn’t understand herself. She maybe be no different to others that hide an addiction or habit. Only hers has a paper trail

AndrewJRenko

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

The Previous Directors are all off in the sunset enjoying their no doubt huge pensions... as well as the many many bonuses they'd have received over the years. Bonuses that were in no way related to any performance incentive or anything, just a 'here's a big bonus for getting this job in the 1st place' type of bonus.

Let's be honest, we all hate them, but we'd love to be one of them....

No bonuses in this sector, maybe in the big universities.

This kind of fraud isn't limited to the public sector.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/criminal-court/woman-stole-20-000-from-company-s-social-club-and-credit-card-court-told-1.4437814

The scale of the Donegal one is crazy though. Some serious negligence that it wasn't noticed.

Montage of Feck

Sardonicat wrote: »

But there would have been nothing to show for it! €10,500 a month for no work/services provided or grossly inflated fees. What could possibly cost that much in teaching support?

Teaching support? Haha! It's a slush fund for political appointees.

AndrewJRenko

Montage of Feck wrote: »

Teaching support? Haha! It's a slush fund for political appointees.

Which of the school principals involved were political appointees?

BattleCorp

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Which of the school principals involved were political appointees?

Now, I wonder if anybody on that list should have spotted the theft?