Company Property

[withonel]

What is the name of your state? California

We recently terminated an off-site salesperson. At the time of hire we gave him a laptop. We provided him with our FedEx account number to return the laptop, but he has not returned it.

To avoid this in the future I'd like to create an equipment 'check out' sheet for employees that have company equipment to sign . Do you know where I might find a good template for something like this?

In this case we terminated this person long-distance. How can we go about retrieving this equipment, especially since we have nothing that says we gave it to him?

Thanks.

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

What is the name of your state? California

We recently terminated an off-site salesperson. At the time of hire we gave him a laptop. We provided him with our FedEx account number to return the laptop, but he has not returned it.

To avoid this in the future I'd like to create an equipment 'check out' sheet for employees that have company equipment to sign . Do you know where I might find a good template for something like this?

In this case we terminated this person long-distance. How can we go about retrieving this equipment, especially since we have nothing that says we gave it to him?

Thanks.

My response:

Are these employees typically inside or outside the State? If outside, in what other States do you conduct business? What is the average value of the computers?

IAAL

 

[Beth3]

"How can we go about retrieving this equipment, especially since we have nothing that says we gave it to him?" You can send him a letter stating that if he does not return the laptop by [reasonable date] you will be taking legal action. That *might* be enough to get him to send it back.

If it doesn't, then you'll have to decide whether the cost of pursuing this is worth it and whether you should just chalk it up as an expensive lesson. Of course when you are contacted for references on the guy, you are free to mention that he refused to return the company provided laptop.

 

[withonel]

For IAAL -

This particular former employee is located in the SF area, we are in the San Diego area. We have one employee in AZ and one in WI, we anticipate employees in Georgia and FL soon. These are marketing and/or sales employees who work from home. They're standard Dell laptop computers, probably worth about $1000.

For Beth -
Thanks, we'll try the letter. All employees sign an "EE Innovations and Proprietary Rights Assignment Agreement" which includes a paragraph stating, in part...' all computer equipment is to be returned upon 5 days of termination...' But there's nothing that says he has this particular computer.

We're putting together a checklist now for everyone to sign that will include equipment they have with serial numbers. One more lesson learned the hard way.