Employee Thief

Been hearing alot from peers that employee thief is on the rise...not just in our industry but all over. Where do you think we should be weary of employee thief on an apartment community? Would like to hear some stories!!

Employee theft is troublesome... I do not claim to know the statistics, but there are areas of concern:

You need to screen maintenance employees that will invariably enter occupied, unattended units to perform repairs for property theft; office employees need to be screened also, because even though they may not enter occupied units through the normal course of their day, they have access to keys and that access could be problematic. You also need to make sure that vendors perform background checks for any employee that they may send to your site. You need to be looking for crimes involving actual theft (shoplifting is an example).

Furthermore, you need to screen office personnel for crimes of FRAUD. These are folks that may attempt to use credit reports to their advantage and make fraudulent credit applications and purchases using resident or applicant information.


I used to work for a major retailer (who shall remain nameless), and at our location, we had to terminate and prosecute 18 people for theft and fraud to resolve an issue. The worst part was that, we had to perform our own investigation and the regional loss prevention manager made our location his office. This was not fun, while the investigation was underway (which lasted 2 months), I was working out of a different location on a special company wide liquidation project, where we set up a temporary virtual store to either liquidate discontinued product, or set up vendor returns. When I returned from the project, I was surporsed at the number of people that were terminated and why. The theft was was not little, and was not a lot of product.

I don't know if it is on the rise. It seems I hear of incidents about twice a year.

Recently, I heard of a bookkeeper not applying application fees paid with money orders. She would waive the app fee and save the money orders to apply to small balance delinquents. There of course is a delinquent bonus paid. You can catch this by both looking at the charge detail reports for waived fees and by seeing suspicious activity such as one money order being applied to more than one resident.

In another case, an employee purchased upgraded flooring and appliances for their own apartment. They tried to roll the expenses through the upgrade program, however, their "upgrade" was even more upgraded than the renovation plan. Watch your invoice details carefully!

It starts with proper screening techniques but goes on to include having a thorough awareness of your staff and their duties/roles as professionals. As a Supervisor, I am constantly dropping in on our leasing personnel, management and maintenance staff and usually the biggest thing I have to do is ask our maintenance staff to turn down the volume of their music as they are working on an apartment. These property visits show the staff that I am out and about and will stop in at the property whenever I feel it is necessary.

I am a firm believer that you should believe who someone is the first time they show you. That said, do not discount discrepancies between what you are being told and what you know to be true. I strongly agree with the posting above where it was suggested to read all invoices carefully. 99& of the time, they tell you all you need to know.

Even the most comprehensive employee screenings and diligent staff supervisor won't be able to catch all instances of fraud or theft, so it's important to have the proper tools in place to thwart suspicious activity. By adopting online payments you are limiting the amount of times cash or money orders change hands, and ensure that app fees, rent, etc. are going from 1 account to the next with associated receipts. Also, you should have a system in place that allows you to customize user rights and roles depending on the individual. For example, your leasing agent might only need access to marketing and property data, so don't grant access to A/R, invoices, or financial information.

It's so sad that people choose to steal.

A former employer of mine had the policy of 'trust, but verify.'

Property Management is espcecially at risk for theft since on-site managers have such limited supervision. I filled in at a property once where all the rent payments made by money order had disappeared. The manager was fired of course, but that left the duty of re-collecting rents up to me. All but one was able to produce their money order receipts. Now my company requires residents to fill out the money order completely, requires managers to photocopy each payment.

That is exactly WHY I have always made photocopies of all checks/money orders/cashier's checks and NEVER, EVER accept cash in the office for ANY reason.

When a resident comes in and asks for a receipt; I always make a copy of the payment, sign and date it as received. When a resident applies; I make 2 copies of the payment for application fees and reservation deposit; I give one to the applicant, and attach the other to the actual application documents. When a resident moves in, I make 2 copies of the move in funds; I give one to the resident, and one goes into the file.

At the end of the day; I make copies of all money received that day to support any deposits I make the next morning.


When it comes to money, it is not about what you can SAY to the accounting department, but what can be PROVEN.

Dan,

Online payments do not work for all property types/classes. We did a survey and found that a majority of our residents still prefer to pay in person by personal check, cashiers check or money order. What's more, I understand wanting variety and convenience for your residents, but encouraging them to interact solely with a computer or website almost does away with the need for a resident manager except for local housing rules. We have to pay for our on-site personnel, so it behooves us to utilize them. Otherwise you're right, its human nature and there is bound to be a problem every now and then. For our accounting we use Yardi and it does a great job allowing us to track changes, modifications, etc by a certain user.

Dan,

You make some very good points. I would love to have online payment available for my residents, since many of them have requested it. Apparently it is expensive and complicated to do so the owner is not in favor of it.

I'm so busy I'm sure I'd have plenty to do if I no longer had to manually process rent checks, but taking rent checks in person allows me to do resident retention, follow up on maintenance requests, and ask for referrals. I hadn't even considered that!

Thanks!

I agree; online payments may be convenient for the resident; but from a resident relations standpoint, it can be detrimental. I personally like to see my residents at least once a month at rent time. This gives me the opportunity to put faces with names and ask the residents if there are any maintenance issues that may exist. I also like to know ALL my residents by first name. How is this possible in a community of any size when the resident may never set foot in the office, or has minimal maintenance issues?

Now, I am not saying that if a resident chooses to have his bank cut the rent check and drop it in the mail to me; that I won't accept it; as long as it arrives on time and there are no issues between me (staff) and the resident...... Many banks do this for free. In my case, my account is a 'checking' account, but I have no physical checks..... I do all my transactions online or with my debit card; this way I have records of all my money.

Instead of offering online rent payment; I would ask for the ability to accept payments (rent/deposits/damages/application fees/move in money) via credit or debit card in the office..... this also prints 2 receipts; 1 you give them, and the other you keep when you reconcile records.