Chunghwa Post yesterday said that it has fired an employee who allegedly embezzled NT$8 million (US$267,201) from some of the firm’s savings-account customers.
The employee, surnamed Chen (陳), allegedly embezzled funds from 10 customers who had savings accounts in the company’s Kaohsiung Erling (二苓郵局) branch office between March 2015 and last year because of personal financial losses, it said.
The company found that Chen falsified savings account certificates, gave them to the customers and allegedly took a portion of the money from these accounts for his personal use, Chunghwa said.
When a customer’s savings plan expired and they came to redeem the funds with the falsified certificate, Chen reimbursed them with an incorrect principal and interest, a preliminary investigation by the company found.
The company found out about the incident when one of the customers came to the post office after his savings plan expired, Chunghwa Post vice president Wang Shu-min (王淑敏) said.
Chen was not at his desk and one of his colleagues attended to the customer, she said.
“The clerk found out that the amount on the customer’s certificate did not match the amount in the computer system. The company then launched an investigation,” Wang said.
Chen acted alone, Wang said.
The company would use legal channels to retrieve the funds, Wang said, adding that Chen has so far returned NT$2 million.
“We will also seek to seize his assets by bringing this case to court,” she said.
The company’s employees have set up a fund in case they encounter problems when handling money, Wang said.
The fund could be used if there are any shortfalls in recovering the customers’ savings, she said, adding that no taxpayers’ money would be used to reimburse the customers.
Savings account certificates should be reviewed by a clerk’s supervisors, but the supervisors failed to identify the discrepancies in this case, Wang said.
In addition to Chen, who received two major demerits and was fired immediately, four of his supervisors were also punished for negligence, Wang said.
The company has issued corrected certificates to all 10 savings account holders, she said, adding that none of them sustained any financial losses.
“We will improve the internal training of our employees in light of this incident,” Wang said.
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