Post Office debacle

[Mikero]

What a sorry tale of mis-management and contempt for their staff. They have known for several years that the computer system, provided by Fujitsu, was not working properly and was working against Post-Masters and Mistresses, yet they continued to prosecute them for theft and/or false accounting. In one instance a Post-Mistress asked for an auditor to come and check her takings, after watching for a whole day the auditor agreed with her figures yet the computer showed that the takings were too low. She was later prosecuted.

There is documentary evidence that both the Post Offfice and Fujitsu knew that there were problems and tried to cover them up. Help-Line staff were instructed that anyone reporting the problem was to be told "thats an unusual problem, you are the first one to mention it". Somehow agreeing to pay out £50 odd does not seem to be any kind of justice when people have lost their businesses, gone to jail, been heavily fined and in some cases had family breakups, yet those who knowingly did this to them have got away scot-free.

Mikero

[Top of the JES]

I was working for a marketing company who were involved with Camelot and twice a year we had to cover every outlet that sold lottery tickets. I called on one store/post office on the outskirts of Harlow that was run by a lovely couple who were not that far off retirement.

I was shocked that on one visit the shop had been run down on stock and a sign in the window said it was due to close. I spoke to the couple and they told me that The Post Office had accused them of embezzling money from them and they told me then it was the computer system that was miscalculating the monies due and it never tallied with what they paid to the PO.

They had spent a fair bit of money converting a part of the shop into a post office lost their post office contract and were being investigated by the police, their health was affected and future uncertain, what a terrible way to conduct a business by imposing a computer system that people didn't want and failing to recognise the error was on their side and not their franchisees.

[Cheshunto]

Heard about this last week when a former post mistress was interviewed on the Jeremy Vine Radio 2 show.
She went inside for 15 months I think, having been accused of stealing from the post office as a result of the faulty computer system and no fault of her own.
It’s an absolute scandal and before last week I hadn’t heard anything about this.
In the USA these people would probably sue the Post office for millions.

[Disoriented]

What a sorry tale of mis-management and contempt for their staff. They have known for several years that the computer system, provided by Fujitsu, was not working properly and was working against Post-Masters and Mistresses, yet they continued to prosecute them for theft and/or false accounting. In one instance a Post-Mistress asked for an auditor to come and check her takings, after watching for a whole day the auditor agreed with her figures yet the computer showed that the takings were too low. She was later prosecuted.

There is documentary evidence that both the Post Offfice and Fujitsu knew that there were problems and tried to cover them up. Help-Line staff were instructed that anyone reporting the problem was to be told "thats an unusual problem, you are the first one to mention it". Somehow agreeing to pay out £50 odd does not seem to be any kind of justice when people have lost their businesses, gone to jail, been heavily fined and in some cases had family breakups, yet those who knowingly did this to them have got away scot-free.

Mikero

Well said.