Years ago one of my truck drivers engaged in a nifty theft scheme. When fueling the company truck the attendant at the gas station offered to split the take if he would cooperate and help him falsify some fuel tickets to my company. All the attendant needed was for the driver to sign his name on a few tickets where nothing was sold.

Like most thieves they get greedy and stupid. An alert book keeper noticed that there were consecutive ticket numbers on the same day, and when he bought it to my attention I noticed that one ticket was for 30 gallons of gasoline going into a truck with a 22 gallon tank. (Yes I know these details.)

I was able to bluff a confession out of my driver and he was immediately fired (eight years with the company). I then refused to pay the bills to the fuel company since their attendant had defrauded me. The gasoline vendor (Gulf Oil) contended that my driver was equally liable and refused to credit the charges.

I contended that while my driver was in fact a thief that they were responsible for a) initiating the crime and b) creating the environment where this crime could happen. My driver would not have been able to execute this crime without the gas station attendant.

We settle on splitting the bill 50/50 (about $900) and we stopped doing business with the company which has eventually absorbed or merged out of business.

My point is an analogy to our financial mess. My driver was the Wall Street crowd who participated in a large scale financial fraud, but the gas station attendant was the Congress via Fannie Mae who created the conditions and initiated the crime.

They should both be fired.

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