halfords satnav trial loans

[BaldyBaldwin]

in may this year my son who works for halfords partime took loan of a tomtomsatnav that was being offered to staff to try out. as it was given to him his manager said "your responsible for it"., what happens , that night on the way home he visits a friend ,while he is in his friends house his car is broken into and he loses his car stereo, a freinds ipod, a rucksack with all his A level course work (which was subsequently found and returned by the police) and of course the satnav.

the insurance will not pay out because it was not my sons property.

 

his manager has told him that he is now going to stop the full retail price from my sons wages even though the satnav is a demonstrastion model that has been loaned out previously to other members of staff, he says he can do that because he still has the box??

1/ is he allowed to abititrarily to stop money from his wages , with out agreeing it with my son

2/ can he take more than the real monetary value of the item, i.e. chargeing him full price for what is a second hand item

3/ do halfords have a duty of care to there own property when they loan it out to there staff( at the moment they are loaning satnavs out to customers for a trial period)

4/ why should halfords profit from my sons car being broken into??

5/ when i spoke to halfords personel dept. they said it would be in my sons terms and conditions?? (cant these morons say anything original)

 

any opinions or advice will be much appreciated as always

[blacksheep1979]

Deny that the manager said he was responsible for it - when it comes down to it its his word against your sons. He never signed anything saying tht he would pay full retail value for the item - which is going to be far more than what it cost the company as they would be able to offset the VAT from the trade price as well.

 

Write them a letter stating the item wasn't your sons responsibility he was given it as he sees for a training exercise and never agreed to pay trade price let alone retail if it was lost and that any wages not paid will be sought through the small claims court.

[pcr1]

Employers of retail workers cannot take more than 10% of gross pay to cover cash or stock shortages. There is further advice in this CAB leaflet:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/n6w/e_employer_witholds_your_pay.pdf

 

 

I strongly suggest you speak to your nearest CAB as a matter of urgency.

[BaldyBaldwin]

many thanks blacksheep and pcr1, brilliant advice i, its made my son feel much better about the whole thing. also we always suspected it but we now know his manager is a total halfwit.( and thats being polite)

[Frederick]

Ask for a copy of his contract, most employees don't even sign a contract as one is not presented at the time the employment commences. (Of course, most does not mean all). If they can't come up with a signed contract of employment that states "Employees are personally liable for any item they are loaned by the company for purposes of staff training" or other some such legalese, then I can't see how the manager can claim anything at all.

[BaldyBaldwin]

thanks for the advive fredrick, nice one. hopefuly it wont be needed, as the threats seem to have stopped, i think so far we have called his bluff, and it seems he turned out to be all wind and $&ss , but you never know, he might suprise us yet. but i think my sons leaveing next month to go to uni so hopefuly that will be that.

[LNT999]

Why not just claim off the house insurance? Depends on your insurance, but if its anything like mine, personal items are covered if they are stolen from away from the home.

[BaldyBaldwin]

we tried that, but as we did not own the item it was not covered. any way my son has now left halfords to go to uni, and it looks like we have called there bluff. hope i have not spoke to soon.

thanks for the advice

[LNT999]

No problem. I'd have also thought that Halfords should check their own insurance...