History Main / StealingFromTheTill

* ''VideoGame/Persona5'': One target in Mementos has been doing this at the convenience store he runs, to the tune of about 50,000 Yen (roughly $400), all whilst pinning the blame on a part-timer.

* The SPECTRE meeting in ''Film/{{Thunderball}}'' had Number One accuse an underling for stealing from him when the illegal drug trade racket he's in charge of earned less than expected, despite the man's explanation of competition from TheCartel driving prices down. He's nervously sweating like his side operation's just been rumbled and he's about to be fired and fried...[[spoiler:until Number One abruptly zaps [[BlofeldPloy a different member that was acting nonchalant the whole time]]. Said underling even looked [[SmugSnake smug]], but Blofeld knew that he was the ''real thief''. Blofeld even uses it to warn the other members to not betray him]].

* Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) fraud occurs when [[CorruptCorporateExecutive employers]] would steal money meant for benefit plans. It's a breach of fiduciary duty, as ERISA requires employers to make prudent decisions on behalf of their workers and notify them of any upcoming changes in advance. Enron was a notorious case, where its executives raided its retirement plan before the company went belly-up. This is a form of "reverse embezzlement," where the employer robs its workers of their benefits, but sadly, many don't even notice the breach as they usually toss their 401(k) statements. To detect ERISA fraud, employees should be extra vigilant on things such as erroneous contributions, unusual transactions, or abrupt changes to the plan. As an additional requirement, benefit plans must be covered by a fidelity bond, as it insures against theft by persons who handle the plan.
** Sadly, no equivalent protection appears to exist in Britain: there have been at least three well-publicised cases of big businesses in trouble "borrowing" from the employees' retirement pot to make good shortfalls elsewhere, or in one case, outright theft. As this is not illegal in the UK, the delinquent CEO's got away with it, despite moral opprobrium and a lot of suddely impoverished pensioners.

* ''Manga/SpyXFamily'' has Loid and Franky go on a sub-mission alongside the main ''Strix'' mission, where they have to bust a smuggling ring and take back a load of stolen jewelery. Franky is hesitant to do so until Loid suggests that they could report a few pieces "missing" in the process. Loid pockets a diamond ring intended for his fake marriage with Yor but loses it in an ensuing gunfight alongside her, so he opts for a grenade pin ring.

** Craig and Betsy Kettleman conspired to embezzle $1.6 million from the County Treasury while Craig was working there. When they later start their own tax rebate business they're found to be giving clients smaller rebates than expected, pocketing the difference for themselves. They justify their thievery by telling themselves they work hard and are entitled to reward themselves.

* ''Series/BetterCallSaul'': Jimmy's childhood StartOfDarkness was working at his father's general store and watching his father get duped by an obvious conman. The conman tells Jimmy that there are two people in the world: wolves and sheep. An angry and disenchanted Jimmy apparently resolves to be a wolf and helps himself to cash from his father's register. Many years later, Jimmy's brother recalls their father going out of business, with thousands of dollars having gone missing over the years. (It's later acknowledged, though, that Jimmy didn't steal as much as Chuck thought; his father was a major victim of con-artists over the years.)

* The title character in ''Film/{{Alfie}}'' is quite proud of the fact that he has a 'fiddle' on the go with the company that employs him as a chauffeur. His supervisor is actually aware that he's helping himself to the company's fuel and money, but rather than discipline him he warns him not to be ''too'' greedy.

* The protagonist of the strategy/management game ''VideoGame/MadTV'' can keep spending company money on increasingly expensive gifts for his love interest. Nobody seems to notice or care.

* On ''Series/MadMen'', [[spoiler:Lane Pryce]] forges Don's signature on a company check. He insists that it is just a "13-day loan" that he will repay once the Christmas bonuses are given out. Then the bonuses are postponed till January. Then the bonuses are canceled altogether and he has no way of returning the money. [[spoiler:[[DrivenToSuicide He kills himself shortly after being found out by Don]].]]

It can be as minor as stealing pens to as major as budgeting an entire chunk of the company to fund your own private island. How acceptable the crime is perceived as depends on [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality narrative focus]] and the relative scale of the theft. If you work at a horrible, soul-sucking job, then it's "okay" to take money out of petty cash to help cover the bills, but your boss wiring money to an off-shore account is not. If you take supplies rather than cash, that's even less frowned upon, because the company was ''expecting'' it to be used, right? (Similar logic applies to StealingFromTheHotel.) Large-scale schemes to defraud people are almost always seen as a worse crime than other kinds of theft, not just because of the number of people ripped off, but because of the breach in trust.

The legal term for this sort of behavior is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embezzlement embezzlement]]. [[BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord It is such an ugly word, though.]]

* Catalyst Games Lab, producers of, among other things, Shadowrun, Cthulhutech, and Battletech, went into deep financial trouble in May 10, 2010 from flagrant embezzlement and shadiness by the CEO, although the story gets murky as to who stole the money and whether the CEO was just trying to cover for a close friend who actually embezzled the funds.

* Many current online job applications now come with questionnaires about personal and ethical preferences of the applicant ([[BlatantLies which the website will always insist have no bearing on your consideration as a hiree]]). Expect a question regarding your thoughts on this trope to follow shortly. [[spoiler:the answer is always "strongly disagree".]]
* [[http://stealfromwork.crimethinc.com/ Now a national holiday!]]
* It was popular among Hackers during the BBS-era to find various ways of appropriating other people's modems and phone lines for their use (preferably an employer or a neighbor they dislike),
* There is a popular document where one very bored, and very unscrupulous man had compiled at least ''[[SerialEscalation A Hundred Ways]]'' one can steal from their gas station employer. [[DoNotTryThisAtHome Trying any of it is not recommended]] [[DoWrongRight since the document is no doubt very out of date.]] [[AndThatsTerrible Also, Stealing's Wrong]].
* Many, ''many'' political examples occur with dictators who've looted money from the countries they run to line their own pockets.
* Embezzlement at high levels of government often leads to [[EveryManHasHisPrice bribery]] at lower levels -- the ruling thieves take so much that there isn't enough money to pay low-level civil servants a decent wage. As a result, they start to supplement their income by refusing to do anything unless you grease their palms and/or become a lot more willing to overlook or aid in illegal or immoral activities if the price is right. China's crack down on corruption in the mid 2010's at all levels of government has resulted in a rapid decline in the number of prospective employees for government positions and a creeping poverty effect: if an official previously lived decently thanks to corruption (either personal or from "trickle down" from higher officials), they suddenly find it much harder to make ends meet.
* When Enron collapsed, employees walked out with a lot of presumably valuable items -- laptops, Blackberries, cell phones, etc. -- despite the company's claims that they belonged to the bankruptcy courts.[[note]]We should note here that that was ''almost'' right, with a fine caveat: in US bankruptcy, when a debtor declares bankruptcy, all of his/her/its property at the time it declares (minus a few items for individuals) becomes property of an entity called the debtor's "bankruptcy estate," a legal entity separate from the debtor. The bankruptcy estate in a Chapter 7 liquidation case like Enron's is administered by a Chapter 7 trustee, who represents the interests of the debtor's unsecured creditors. In most of the US, the Chapter 7 trustee is a private local attorney (usually one who is also a CPA) appointed by the United States Trustee for that region; the United States Trustee Program is a part of the United States Department of Justice, serving under the federal Attorney General. Nobody can do anything with a Chapter 7 debtor's bankruptcy estate without the Chapter 7 trustee's say-so. Management was right that the stuff the employees stole didn't belong to the company, but it didn't belong to the court. That said, the trustee probably didn't care that much about the piddling equipment theft; it was ridiculously small fry compared to the massive assets Enron was sitting on.[[/note]] Presumably no one cared. (In fact, being screwed over by your employer is a not-uncommon motive for employee theft -- if you're just punching a timeclock and no one cares that management treats you like shit, what's a few toasters between coworkers?)

* The invention of the cash register and quite a few of its upgrades is a result of this trope. A cash box can easily be opened and stolen from. The addition of the paper roll added a way to keep track of all the day's sales. The bell ringing when the register opened was a way of alerting the manager/owner to a sale being made. The tactic of "odd pricing" (prices ending in .99 or .95) was designed, in addition to making the price look lower, to ensure that the register '''had'' to open to give the customer change. Even the way that the National Cash Register business flourished involved an example of this: initially, they would mail letters and flyers to businesses offering their services, but the employees who were already stealing money would then steal or destroy the letters/flyers to keep the boss from knowing about it, so owner John Patterson set up demos at hotels and civic centers showing how much theft it stopped.

* Amongst lawyers, it's said that there is no quicker way to lose your license to practice law than to take money from your clients (or more specifically, their trust accounts[[note]]Bank accounts containing money the client pays in so that lawyers can get paid in an orderly fashion[[/note]]) without their knowledge or consent. Even if you didn't take that much, even if you pay the client back, or even if you pay the client back more than what you stole, it doesn't matter.[[note]]The only argument that could possibly get you out of it is "There was a mixup -- I was trying to withdraw from my own account, but there was a typo/technical glitch and the money ended up coming out of the trust account instead." Even that is not especially likely to succeed, as you'd need to provide some evidence that's pretty hard to produce.[[/note]] Many an EvilLawyerJoke aside, it's the one behavior that the legal profession has zero tolerance for: whatever organization regulates the legal profession in your area ''will'' bring down the banhammer on you. As more than one law professor has said, "touch your client's money and you're done."

* An elementary school teacher in the old Soviet Union wanted to teach her pupils that it was bad to steal from the state-owned enterprises. Every child described with glee the things their parents stole- until one child burst out crying because his parents didn't bring home any pilfered goods. His classmates clustered around him and hugged him, assuring him that they would share their loot. An inspiring lesson, but possibly not the one the teacher hoped to make.[[/folder]]

* Goetz does this in ''Series/{{Jericho}}''.

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "Happy Families", one suspect is the VictimOfTheWeek's BeleaguredAssistant, who has been commiting fraud by charging extravagant purchases to his boss's corporate credit card, knowing that his boss never checks the statements. However, an insurance company check about why a purchased item was not showing up on the policy threatens to expose him, thereby giving him a motive for murder.

* A major reason for labor unions' current image problems stems from [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia the American Mafia's]] notorious involvement in labor racketeering. Once the mob took over a union, they essentially ran the show by rigging everything in their favor and stealing from worker benefit plans to line up their own wallets. Food preparation, construction, cargo services, transportation, clothing and garbage hauling were some of the industries worst affected by union racketeering. It became so serious that Congress held numerous hearings over this in the 1950s and 1960s. The movie ''Film/OnTheWaterfront'' is a good example that depicts the rampant corruption and bribery on the New Jersey and Brooklyn dockyards. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act has provisions that allow the government to place a union under federal control. Prosecutors have to prove the union was a cover for organized crime.
* Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) fraud occurs when [[CorruptCorporateExecutive employers]] would steal money meant for benefit plans. It's a breach of fiduciary duty, as ERISA requires employers to make prudent investment and plan design decisions on behalf of their workers, and notify participants of any upcoming changes in advance. Enron was a notorious case, where its executives raided its retirement plan before the company went belly-up. ERISA fraud is a form of "reverse embezzlement," where the employer robs its workers of their benefits, but sadly, many don't even notice the breach as they usually discard their 401(k) statements. To detect ERISA fraud, employees should be extra vigilant on things such as erroneous contributions, a significant drop in account values that's not due to market conditions, weird transactions, or unexplained changes to the plan. As an additional requirement to the fiduciary duty imposed on employers, a 401(k) plan must be covered by a fidelity bond, as it insures against theft by persons who handle the plan's assets.

* In ''VideoGame/CuteKnight'', working as a shop assistant would at some point trigger an event that gives the player an option to steal from the till. Not only does this raise her sin level, they may get caught. If so, the shop owner would not only stop working with her, but also charge her more for merchandise.

* ''VideoGame/CuteKnight1'': Working as a shop assistant would at some point trigger an event that gives the player an option to steal from the till. Not only does this raise her sin level, they may get caught. If so, the shop owner would then fire her.

* ''Series/FBIMostWanted'': In "Caesar", Sandra, a nurse's aide, is stealing ani-seizure meds from the hospital where she works for Cleo, who has epilepsy and, as a wanted felon, cannot risk visiting a pharmacy.

* The SPECTRE meeting in ''Film/{{Thunderball}}'' had Number One accuse an underling for stealing from him when the illegal drug trade racket he's in charge of earned less than expected, despite the man's explanation of competition from TheCartel driving prices down. He's nervously sweating like his side operation's just been rumbled and he's about to be fired and fried...[[spoiler:until Number One abruptly zaps [[BlofeldPloy a different member that was acting nonchalant the whole time]]. Said underling even looked like a SmugSnake, but Blofeld was aware that he was the ''real thief''. Blofeld even uses it to warn the other members to not betray him]].