Employer Making Me Pay for Theft

**Yclept** · 12-31-2010, 12:22 PM

My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Oklahoma

I work for a gas station in Oklahoma that sells pre-paid Green Dot Visa cards. We regularly get scammers that try to get us to activate cards over the phone and have been told repeatedly that it is going to happen and if we do it we will be fired.

However, the other day, a customer came in to the store and, without my knowing, swapped a card in one of the packages (which are located out on the sales floor, not behind any secure area). He tells me the amount he wants on it, so I ring it up and activate it not knowing that he had swapped the card. He then says he has to go to his vehicle to get his other card to pay for it. He never came back, and since he had swapped the card, now had stolen 200 dollars. Later, it was caught on film that he swapped the cards out.

Now, my employer is threatening that if I don't pay the 200 dollars back that someone else stole, they are going to fire me. Someone stole, they have him on camera, and instead of going after the criminal, they are bullying me for the money. Isn't this extortion? I'm obviously no lawyer but I'm pretty sure this cannot be legal.

**cbg** · 12-31-2010, 12:27 PM

It's not extortion. It may or may not be legal in your state (Patty will know for certain) but it's not a criminal issue.

They can, however, legally fire you for this regardless of whether you pay the $200 or not.

**PattyPA** · 12-31-2010, 12:39 PM

Pay out of pocket or deducting it from your paycheck? All at once or in payments?

Do you make minimum wage or very close to it?

jk · 12-31-2010, 01:19 PM

so, you are saying you allowed him to walk out of the store WITH the stolen card that you just activated and put $200 credit balance on it without paying for it.

Of course, the video tape also shows you running out in an attempt to get his license number, right?

and of course, since he did leave a card that was presumably registered to the thief in a package in the store, you went over and got that and gave that to the police so they could track the guy, right?

and of course, there is a police report for the theft of the new card too, right?

Ya see, if you look at this from just a little different perspective, it looks like you activated a card, put $200 on it and let him walk out of the store with it in his hand. Hopefully there is video of your showing some sort of extreme reaction to just getting ripped off for $200 or it might look like you are complicit in the crime.

**BOR** · 12-31-2010, 02:15 PM

Quoting PattyPA

Pay out of pocket or deducting it from your paycheck? All at once or in payments?

Do you make minimum wage or very close to it?

What is OK's law on employee cash till make up?

We can not assume it was theft alone, as an employer demanding an employee pay back a theft amount or be fired is very sticky civil legal area, especially since OK recognizes a public policy exception to at will employment.

IF, arguendo, the employer is demanding she make it up due to Negligence, to be polite, is this permitted by OK law where she can be made to.

If it is not permitted, then the employer is risking legal redress even simply by asking.

As jk notes though, unless she was negligent, or not to be mean, an airhead for that moment, at least, she might have been in on it.