Abuse of Maternity Protection | Maternity Protection Fraud

Pregnancy Fraud – a Devious Form of “Calling in Sick”

In the struggle for a few additional hours and days off, the imagination of many employees knows no bounds: deception, lies and forgeries are employed to unlawfully obtain time off work from the employer. While feigned illness is the most common practice used to fraudulently gain leisure time, abuse of maternity protection is a rather unusual and particularly immoral way of being granted leave from work while continuing to receive pay. Female employees maliciously pretend to be pregnant, forge medical certificates and blood tests, and have themselves sent home on full pay for the legally prescribed six weeks before and eight weeks after the birth. Our private detectives from Saarbrücken can report on employees who attempted to convince colleagues and superiors that they were pregnant by wearing loose clothing, feigning nausea and placing cushions under their clothes.

 

If such a sham pregnancy exists, it can be strongly assumed that the fraudster generally has little or no inhibition about lying to employers and colleagues. Anyone who resorts to such perfidious means has certainly not violated their contractual obligations for the first time. Greater consideration from colleagues, small favours here and there, a blind eye turned by the boss when the woman wants to go home early due to nausea and discomfort – all of this is merely the tip of the iceberg. A basis of trust can no longer exist under these conditions, which is why summary dismissal by the employer is justified. But how do the supposedly pregnant women deal with the absence of a real baby? Pretexts such as adoption, miscarriage and similar explanations often allow the perpetrators to return to work after a long period of sick leave with continued payment of wages, without a single person in the company becoming aware of the committed act of maternity fraud. Our commercial detectives from Saarbrücken are able to verify, in cases of dubious pregnancies, whether they are feigned to the detriment of the employer: +49 681 6029 0010.

Indicators of a Feigned Pregnancy

When an employee announces that she is expecting a child, this is usually followed by a wave of congratulations and offers of help from colleagues and superiors, even though a pregnancy entails absences from work, the organisation of replacement staff and the redistribution of tasks. No one would expect a colleague to feign a pregnancy in order to obtain financial advantages or more leisure time. As sad and to a certain extent absurd as such a feigned pregnancy may be, such cases do occur time and again. Accordingly, employers must unfortunately pay attention to irregularities with regard to their staffing capacities and finances in order not to be taken advantage of. If the pregnant woman behaves atypically, for example continues to smoke, lifts heavy objects and generally shows hardly any changes in behaviour, this may indicate deception, but does not necessarily have to. While some pregnant women are overcautious and avoid any risk, there are others who continue to smoke, drink alcohol and lift heavy weights at the gym. Whether a pregnant woman is merely being imprudent or whether an employee is feigning her pregnancy is clarified by our detectives from Saarbrücken in a court-admissible manner.

 

At the request of the client, we observe suspected pregnancy fraudsters at the workplace, during field service assignments and in their leisure time. In doing so, our investigators document, for example, whether the suspect regularly visits a gynaecologist and behaves in a manner consistent with pregnancy, or whether she, for instance, goes on holiday during sick leave or maternity protection, parties at night in nightclubs or rides roller coasters at amusement parks. By infiltrating a detective into the company, it can also be checked during working hours whether the pregnant woman is taking it easy, relaxing excessively and failing to perform her duties adequately. A pregnancy does involve many strains; however, a pregnant woman who is not on sick leave must nevertheless complete her tasks within the prescribed timeframes. In the event of a justified initial suspicion, the employer can therefore have our detective agency in Saarland determine whether the employee is actually pregnant or feigning her condition for her own supposed benefit.

Abuse of the Law: Protection Against Dismissal for Pregnant Women

Pursuant to Section 9 of the Maternity Protection Act (MuSchG), special protection against dismissal applies to pregnant women:

 

“The dismissal of a woman during pregnancy and until the expiry of four months after childbirth is inadmissible if the employer was aware of the pregnancy or childbirth at the time of dismissal or if this is communicated within two weeks after receipt of the dismissal.”

 

As a result, pregnancy status may appear attractive to some women not for emotional reasons, but for calculated employment-related motives. Perhaps the boss has already announced that staff will have to be made redundant, or has issued a warning, causing the woman concerned to fear imminent dismissal. Defiant reactions to warnings or even to ordinary dismissals are certainly well known to most employers; the classic phrase in this context is “then I will simply go on sick leave”. In this way, notice periods are unscrupulously sat out at home or impending dismissals circumvented, because anyone who is on sick leave and does not attend work cannot, of course, repeat misconduct for which he or she has already been warned. Perhaps the perpetrators commit these fraudulent acts in order to escape the situation quickly and already find a new job, so that they do not slip into unemployment at all.

 

Either way, the employer has an interest in finding out whether his employee is actually pregnant or whether an attempt at deception exists. This is carried out by our commercial detective agency from Saarbrücken by documenting all observed and researched indications in the form of a court-admissible investigation report: kontakt@kurtz-detektei-saarbruecken.de.

Detective Surveillance in Cases of Feigned Pregnancy

Do you experience your allegedly pregnant employee as continuing to be an excessive smoker? Does she have a history of conspicuously frequent and suspicious sick notes? Or was she due to be dismissed, whereupon she promptly announced a sudden pregnancy? If you recognise yourself in one of the examples described here or find yourself in a similar situation that requires discreet clarification, then contact Kurtz Investigations Saarbrücken free of charge. We will advise you on our verification and evidential options and develop a plan of action with you; whether the suspect should be observed, a detective should be infiltrated into your company or other enquiries should be carried out, we decide together after weighing all circumstances: +49 681 6029 0010.

Author: Maya Grünschloß, PhD

 

Kurtz Detective Agency Saarbrücken and Saarland

St. Johanner Straße 41–43

66111 Saarbrücken

Tel.: +49 681 6029 0010

Fax: +49 681 6029 0019

E-Mail: kontakt@kurtz-detektei-saarbruecken.de

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