HP finance manager went on $5m personal spending spree with company card A now-former HP finance planning manager pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and filing false tax returns that follow from the misappropriation of company funds. According to the US Justice Department, Shelbee Szeto, 30, of Fremont, California, worked at HP Inc from August 2017 through June …
There's a psychological pathology at work, at any rate. I've seen this in other cases, where people embezzle recklessly, with little or no realistic hope of getting away with it. It seems to be compulsive.
There was a somewhat similar case where the company treasurer for a Michigan firm embezzled millions for a 419 scam. You might think someone in that position would have to be able to recognize a 419 — it's not like they're sophisticated — but she just kept pumping company funds into it.
I've see this many times. At least this one made some effort to conceal her tracks but apparently got a bit greedy with the $330K purchase. I've seen this in Governments. Local Government employees are given PCards and the Finance office is not tracking or requiring expense reports. The employees just start buying stuff for themselves and eventually the money adds up and a change in government brings attention to spending and the employees end up arrested. With the inevitable employee response "I didn't know this was not allowed!"
I understand how she faked documents for HP, and assuming they were done well, HP wouldn't know that her charges were false. However, if I'm understanding correctly, these payments were expected to be paid to a supplier, so how did she avoid the supplier complaining about not being paid? I would have thought that, after every supplier she handled started reporting late or nonpayment, someone would have checked on it if only to prevent angry suppliers. Somehow, this worked for three years.
There's no way she can actually make amends. But she can "try", totally unsuccessfully.
Trying to make amends is a mitigating factor in sentencing. So the lawyer is doing their best for their client, by publicly claiming this mitigating factor in the hope that their client gets a shorter sentence.
Well, first on the list is selling all the stuff she bought with stolen money and giving the proceeds back to HP.
Which will obviously not suffice because the stuff is no longer new, so it'll be sold at a markdown which might be quite important.
Second is her spending the rest of her life remembering that time she had it all only to squander it and find herself cleaning toilets.
Because she will never be given a company card again, that's for sure.
Second hand car prices are certainly ridiculous at the moment. The old battered 107 that we bought for our daughter about 5 years ago ( pre-dented) was just written off by the insurers after a local moron smashed into it while it was parked outside our house. We retained it, (re MOT'd it) from the insurers and accepted their settlement figure. Which was still higher after they'd deducted the scrap value, than we'd paid for it when we bought it. So; We still have the car, with an extra dent, and received more for its value than we paid. And our daughter is still driving it round uni.
When she starts work at a well known multinational computer company in the Autumn we'll give her the insurance money to buy a nice new(er) car. By which time she'll have had 6 years of driving use from the old banger.
Watches could certainly be sold at more than retail (I just had a valuation for insurance, and my good watch which is nearly 20 years old was valued at nearly 1.5x the cost of a new one....people will pay a premium and get a used watch now rather than sit on a waiting list for years to get a new one)
I never have understood the fascination some "people" have for useless bling like Gucci bags. I'm much more into "is it functional?" than "is it brand name?"
But then again, I'm not trying to impress anyone at 57 years old. It isn't like I'm out crusing the bars in a town of 15,000 people, or that designer suits would impress the local hicks. More likely get your sorry butt beaten in an alley for being a snob. :)
Bling is functional. Veblen goods provide social signalling and satisfy psychological cravings that some people are susceptible to acquiring under exposure to certain cultural artifacts.
Those may be functions you don't care about. Good for you; that's one (small) part of acting like a relatively efficient economic agent. It's a quirk of psychology, though. Nothing more.
I'm not interested in Veblen goods either. Some people — and I'm not saying you're one — regard that as some sort of moral superiority, and I think that's mistaken; it's far more complicated.
I'm very much of that opinion. "Street credibility" doesn't of itself equate to real life value.When the kids were little I drove a Berlingo. Think box on wheels, with potential to convert from car to van in minutes. Tons of space for kids' travel cots, toys and what-have-you. Street credibility, style and stuff like that =0%
Practicality 100%
I was rather in shock when I tripped over a coworker's $110,000 embezzlement scheme issuing checks to vendors using their ID numbers and then changing the payee info to her own. She was a piker compared to this one! Still, she got 2 years Federal time, then had the gall to use my name as a professional reference once she got out. I suggested the prospective employer check her criminal background and then lock the doors.
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