Facebook boast about her £6,000 redundancy payout cost bank worker her job

By CLAIRE ELLICOTT FOR THE DAILY MAIL
Updated: 07:44 BST, 27 November 2010

A bank worker who boasted on Facebook about receiving a big redundancy payout was fired after her employer saw the messages.

RBS worker Kate Furlong posted the messages minutes after her bosses announced they were planning to cut 3,500 jobs.

The debt officer at the bank, which is part-owned by the taxpayer, immediately posted on Facebook that it was the ‘best news ever’ and that she would be getting a ‘nice payout’.

Sacked: RBS worker Kate Furlong, 23

After her employers found out she was sacked for breaching the company’s ‘declaration of secrecy’, which they claimed amounted to gross misconduct.

As a result the 23-year-old, who earned £18,000 a year, did not receive her £6,000 payout. Yesterday, Miss Furlong, who had been at the bank for three-and-a-half years, said she was taking RBS to an employment tribunal claiming unfair dismissal.

She said: ‘I can’t believe I’ve been treated so appallingly for what essentially amounts to having a chat with my mates outside of work.’

On September 2, RBS announced plans to slash 3,500 back-office jobs after 318 of its branches were bought by Spanish bank giant Santander.

Facebook: Social networking site boast was reported to Kate Furlong's boss

A chat among friends? Part of the Facebook conversation that cost Katie Furlong a redundancy package

Miss Furlong, who was off work sick at the time, received a phonecall from her manager that day telling her she would have to take redundancy or relocate to Birmingham.

Minutes later, she wrote her first post on Facebook at 5.58pm. It said: ‘WoOOOOooooOooooHOoooOooOoo’ it was pretty damn obvious something like this was coming. I’m neither stupid nor naive...quote (sic) honestly it is the best news ever as far as I am concerned!’

Elated: Katie Furlong was delighted when she was offered her redundancy package

At 6.02pm she continued: ‘They will give us the option to take early retirement (for those eligible obviously), transfer to Birmingham and if so, the possibility of a travel allowance, or redundancies. Either way, SCORE!!!.’

And at 8.17pm she wrote: ‘I’ve just hung on by my fingertips to stick around long enough for a nice payout when they could’ve had me out long ago without a penny! More fool them! Haha! Xx.’

A colleague who saw the comments reported her to her boss who suspended her when she returned on September 13.

Days later a panel told her she was suspended pending a disciplinary hearing.
She was finally sacked last month but yesterday started legal proceedings against RBS.

She said: ‘The information was already out there and all I was doing was having a chat with mates. I don’t feel I should have been sacked. They got rid of me so they didn’t have to pay any redundancy.’

If Miss Furlong had not been sacked she could have applied for redundancy after nearly six years at the bank. This would have been about £6,000 – three-and-a-half-weeks’ pay per year worked – when the Telford centre where she was based closed in 2012.

A RBS spokesman said: ‘We do not comment on individual staff matters.’