Should I tell my boss about the new employee?

How did you discover this info? I’d say stay out of it. Your coworkers might never trust you again.

You need to be absolutely sure you have the facts right before saying anything.

A boss told me once, to only tell him if it affected his business. In this case, I think one little personal ‘heads up’ may be in order, just one-on-one and the boss can handle it as they feel necessary.

No, you should not.
1. You would be a snitch if you do. Everyone hates snitches.
2. You do not know if these accusations are true.
3. Even if they are true, she could be honestly regretting it and did not mention it at the interview because it would have destroyed her chances of being hired at all, anywhere.
You would be responsible for one more unemployed soul, having destroyed a person’s attempt at just making a living.

Please let your boss know as soon as possible. Fraud is nothing to take lightly.

@ragingloli it’s true but I still it’s a moral responsibility.
@KNOWITALL perhaps if I give her a chance she might be an asset, but she could be problem if she did not learn her lesson.
@jaytkay at this moment it’s only gossip but I am tempted to go and speak to her previous employer.

@antimatter Agreed. One woman stole about $200k from an old boss, and she ended up being in jail and restitution, it worked out really bad for her, but my boss lost all that money and she can’t pay it back enough to make a difference. Better safe to let them know I think.

Can you be 100% sure that she actually committed the fraud that you were told about? Do you know with 100% assurance that she was fired justly? Unless you were the person who detected the fraud, conducted the investigation and removed her from that job, you don’t know.

She may be in the process of suing her former company for being fired unjustly. Unless you are her lawyer or the person filing any possible court paperwork, you don’t know.

If she was fired justly and there was legal prosecution for the fraudulent acts and she was found guilty, that should be a matter of public record. That is something that would be worth telling someone in Human Resources because at that point it’s not gossip. It’s public record.

May I ask, what is your position in this company?

Well I can’t say what I would do. What a predicament you are in! If its just gossip then no I would not tell the boss. If you say this and you are wrong it would make you look bad. If it’s true maybe she learned her lesson previously and give her a chance or should you be obligated to tell due to the severity. I mean if she did lie or not disclose thats not right either. It should be the employers choice if they want to hire someone that committed fraud. She should have been upfront about this!

I think the boss is in a better position to sift out rumor from fact. Unless the boss is some god-awful curmudgeon who would dismiss someone with just the air of impropriety, you can float it as “I heard these rumors, I don’t know if they’re true, but we should look into this”

If it turns out to be a fact, and in case she repeats the activity, you might be accused as accessory after the fact, as in you purposely kept the info away from boss.

As well, if this is just rumor at this point your “moral responsibility” is to not say anything until there are actual facts.

@Emmy1234 welcome to fluther and yes it’s a big predicament.
@tedibear I am in a senior management position, there were no formal charges filled. But I still feel I should inform HR after I’ve done some digging. I made an appointment with her previous employer on Monday to find out what actually happened.

How about just asking her if there is anything legal, involving her and a previous employer?

unless I saw paperwork proof I wouldn’t take it to the boss…. unless I tipped him off anonymously. I wouldn’t want my name involved in any of it unless it had to be.

It sounds like you’re doing the right thing by talking to her former employer. Then he/she can followup by talking to your business head and you can stay out of it. If it isn’t true, you should probably check out the person who gave you the incorrect news.

Fraud is a pretty big deal. What was the fraud exactly?

I wouldn’t think it is a big deal to lie a little about why someone left their previous company, but if they participated in illegal activity that negatively impacted the company then that is a different story. It isn’t so much the lie as the risk to your current company that is worthy of telling your boss, if there is a risk.

Two cases I know of personally:
1. The company I worked for hired a woman in an insurance company in a postion to cut checks to individuals that had health insurance claims. She made up several names and P.O. boxes and used actual client names to cut checks to her P.O. box. She had stolen over 500,000 by the time the company caught her. They found out she had done the same thing at another insurance company in another state. That insurance company had fired her but refused to prosecute. The woman committed suicide a few days after being caught.

2. My now retired dentist had hired a 20 something year old as an office manager that immediately started stealing from him. She created fake invoices, wrote checks to fake companies, but sent them to her accounts, got hold of his 401K and stole 100,000 out of it.
She was caught and put on probation. The courts felt sorry for her because she was a divorced mother of 3. It was found out later that she had embezzled from a hotel chain, but that they declined to prosecute, they just fired her.
Side note, she is now in prison for doing the same thing to yet another company. That company had never asked for a reference from my dentist, and I bet she didn’t mention it during her interview.

My spider-sense tells me that “she committed fraud” is an oddly specific and atypical sort of rumor. Coupled with what @chyna pointed out, some sort of due diligence is required, I think.

Be completely sure that your facts are right, first. If you speak to your boss, they’ll keep it confidential. Then your coworker won’t know who did it anyway, if that’s another concern of yours. But her reason for being fired is a cause for concern, if it’s right.

Unless you are an investigator or have been hired as such, you have no right to go to someone’s previous employer to unearth dirt on why they are no longer employed there. With over two decades of HR experience, I can tell you that legally in most states, previous employers are prohibited from providing the kind of information that you’re seeking. Unless you are married to this person, why the person was fired is none of your business. From your posts, you sound quite eager to get into someone else’s life.

A more mature approach is to have a conversation with the individual—not go behind her back. Let her know that there are rumors going around about her previous employment. Encourage her to come clean if the rumors are true. Explain to her that because of your concern for your employer, you may at some point feel compelled to report what you’ve heard to management if these rumors persist. This is a more professional way to handle the situation rather than “sneaking around.”

Put your big person underwear on. This can be handled respectfully. Instead of trying to catch someone doing something wrong, be a catalyst to help them do something right.

If you are damm sure about her so I think you should have to talk with your boss. But if you have some doubt about this so first discuss with your colleague friends & try to get more information about her.

I second @tedibear‘s posts the most.

I know this is a day old but I just wanna throw in my 2 cents.

There’s an obvious outpouring of people telling you to practice discernment and certainty regarding speaking up and to approach with an abundance of caution.

Here’s the thing I’d be concerned most about though: If you are the sole person with this information, and it does turn out to be true, and this new employee defrauds the company and you never said anything, you are definitely gonna be in a really really hot seat.

Thank you all for your excellent advise, so I decided to leave things as it is. The rumor was started by another colleague due to personal issues. I am glad I first investigated because she could have have lost her job because of a rumor.

@antimatter I thought you had the facts, because “I discovered…”, “I found out…”.

@flo Many times even the news media reports gossip as truth. It’s rarely as simple as that. Fortunately @antimatter has more integrity and discernment than your average journalist.

I’ve been there, seen the worst.

Thanks @snowberry, I think I’ll take it as an complement.
@flo everybody deserves a fair chance in life even at the time posting this question I thought I had may facts, but somehow the truth did come out.

@snowberry No need to compare ourselves with the worse,worst, so bringing up incompetent journalists is neither here nor there.
@antimatter All I mean is if we don’t have first hand knowledge, better not to use those terms.

Just to edit to add above: ”....journalists without integrity and discernment/incompetent….”

@flo OK, maybe you’re right, but sometimes even journalists from ESPN lack discernment and competence. Sorry, I’m not at liberty to hand over the details because to do so would compromise my privacy. But if such nonsense rarely happens, my family has sure seen more than our share of it.

@snowberry I don’t need details, I know it is not rare, But still why even refer to them?

@flo Oh, never mind. It’s not worth going into here.

You seem like a very committed employee to have unearthed this type of information that can be damaging to this person as she is employed in the field of choice to provide a living for themselves and family. This is an issue where it’s guaranteed to have two sides supporting it, you know WHAT happened but do you know WHY. The person’s situation I feel is way too complex for you take on your own and expose to your superior, there’s too much “what ifs” in the situation and as long as it doesn’t directly affect your work performance. I feel you should stay out of it…...