Thanks Guys, The company have put their hands up and said they did wrong. They didn't go through the correct dismissal procedures; my line manager tried to hack into my linkedin account and although they made a promise that none of my deals would be given to the sales team whilst I was on suspension, they re-channeled my accounts the moment I left the office and I had photographic evidence of that. According to the employment judge all of these things would of got them into some fairly serious trouble and no doubt my MD took legal advice and was told the same as me. What My MD did yesterday was damage limitation and in due course there will have to be full disclosure. What really gets me is the vulnerability of people like myself who are working towards high commission contracts. It seems there is no safety barrier for people who sit on my side of the fence. For my own sanity I needed to fight this and thank goodness I had the opportunity to do so; most of us can't afford that opportunity. The problem with cases like this is, what area of law do you turn to?. I made a dozen calls to a dozen solicitors before my friend came up trumps; every law firm I spoke to told me they didn't deal with this are of law and didn't have a clue where to direct me. what was eventually given to me through the good will of a friend was a free consultation with a London barrister and a forty minute consultation with a London top employment judge who deals with this sort of thing on a regular basis. Both told me how to word that letter and for me to include their names and addresses in that letter. I personally believe that without that letter, I would still be sitting on the garbage heap but how on earth would I of found such lawyers on my own? King, you are absolutely right; in fact what I've discovered through this process is, the clients remain loyal to you (the one they have come to trust) and not the company. It would be easy to set up on my own but I don't want that sort of responsibility. I've been self employed for many years but decided last year that I no longer wanted to continue following that route. If I have to I will but right now I would rather be an employee than self employed.

The IP address came from a personal computer at his home...the home of my line manager Update: I received a call on Thursday from my MD advising me that he had recieved my letter and could he drive over on Friday and have a meeting with me because something had been revealed to the company. I met my MD for coffee yesterday morning. He revealed to me that after further investigation they had discovered three employees who had set themselves up to defraud the company and they had used my name in an attempt to try and escape an accusation. All three have been dismissed and criminal proceedings will be taking place against them. He profusely apologized and immediately offered me my job back along with compensation. He also told me that my line manager was being moved to another department so I would no longer be working under him. I have slept on things and made the decision to return to work providing I get a full apology in writing and the deals I was about to sign re-allocated back to me. I'm still dubious about what I've been told but then I was shat on from a great height and so bound to be suspicious. The advise given to me by the two lawyers was highly valuable and clearly I had a strong case against the company; no doubt about that. I believe if I'd done nothing my job wouldn't be offered back to me now but with a pending court case, the company had no choice but to further investigate and come clean. I want to thank those who supported me and advise those who tried to warn me that I was being overly risky in my counter claim, that such a claim...all of which was true, was no more tenuous than the claim they made against myself which led to my immediate dismissal. This was not, as has been suggested, about unfair dismissal but about a fraudulent, possible criminal act against my person. If I had taken your advise then I would of done nothing and believed I wasn't in a position to fight my corner regarding allegations of me committing a criminal act. I guess the final moral of this story is, if you think your right then pursue it because like me, you might just sort things out and not end up on the unemployment ladder with no reference.

I consider myself very lucky so far. A conference with a barrister and lets face it, most solicitors would of insisted on that conference, would of set me back £500. Because of a good friend I got that conference for free and the result of that conference was, I've got an incredibly strong case. In all honesty I don't want this to go to court; I want the company to do a proper investigation and show me the evidence and if they are unable to do that...well, lets just see. If I hadn't had the offer of a free conference and lets face it, its an unusual freebie, I likely wouldn't of chosen to go down the legal route because once your unemployed you have to rein in on your spending. This is where the laws of employment fail the employee. Any employee who has the potential to earn big commissions is vulnerable to dishonest practice by their employers; at least for the first couple of years and it seems there are few places they can turn for help without spending a huge amount of money. I'm amazed that my social networking accounts have been inundated by people who have been through similar experiences to mine and hitting brick wall after brick wall when it comes to finding help. I decided today that I would like to put together a campaign that I can take to parliament. There is a huge hole in employment law regarding commission earners and it needs to be brought to light.

My husband is a journalist and understands the law surrounding journalism. Naming and shaming walks a very fine knife edge regarding heavy penalties on newspaper companies. A local paper wouldn't name and shame anyone without evidence of a full trial and a proven guilty party.

Pusillanimous, this is not an employment tribunal. Both the barrister and an employment judge I spoke to yesterday have strongly suggested I take this down the civil/criminal route. This is a counter allegation against the company which could come to trial and the words you suggest I shouldn't use are the very words my barrister suggested I do use.

Hi Steampowered, Over the weekend I have set myself up as an independent broker...something good may come of this and I have an interview on Tuesday for a sales team management position. Although I would of enjoyed those commissions, this is no longer about the money but about clearing my good name. I still feel very angry that the company or at least one of its directors would set up an employee/me like they did and so I intend to fight my corner. I know that sales can be very dirty business and things like this happen all too often but it seems there is little to nothing that employee can do unless they have worked a certain length of time. This makes new employees highly vulnerable to this sort of unscrupulous practice and the chances are, this particular company have probably got away with this before. I intend to show them up for what they are and if I get compensation that will just be an added bonus.

Here's a turn up for the books. I wrote to a good friend of mine in Baltimore last night and she immediately sent my letter to a barrister friend of hers in London. I ended up chatting online to him and this is what he's said; 1. The dismissal is plainly unfair! Number 1, extremely difficult to establish gross misconduct on a single offence but yes, if it is a one-off offence it would have to be something very close to a criminal one. In addition, you had no opportunity to participate in the dismissal process at all, which was bizarrely one-sided, nor have you had a chance to appeal. 2. On the other hand you seem to be victim of (1) as a minimum malicious falsehood but also, if xxxxx does indeed take the commission on those deals (2) arguably conspiracy to defraud, which is a criminal offence as well as civil wrong. xxxxx also maybe attempted to commit a cyber-crime, but that probably wont go far, but might be useful as part of a conspiracy allegation. 3. He is putting me in touch with a particular law firm in London and a man who ran the Jean Tigana's employment dismissal case, which he says was very similar to mine. He did win that case and is well known as a very good employment lawyer. He is also helping me to put together an appeal letter. I'll keep you informed here as to what happens next. Many thanks for your responses so far.

They weren’t done deals until the first cash transaction was made and that was supposed to take place late last week. One of those clients is on LinkedIn and has made contact with me. They are clearly concerned about what has happened and are holding back with this company at the moment. I did look through ActionFraud but there is nothing on that site (unless I’ve missed it) that relates to employers committing a fraudulent act on an employee. I have a mountain of proof that these deals were about to go through and I believe that going after this company for fraud of an employee is the right route to go down. I would love to trace old employees but not sure if a local paper would allow me to make an accusation against a company when nothing has been legally proven. There are enough alarm bells regarding ex-employees for me to explore a route to tracing them and I do have a family member who is an investigative journalist so I’ll be talking to him over the coming week.

Thank you all for your very helpful responses. Unfortunately I was exited from the office so quickly that I didn’t clear my desk, meaning I left my contract behind. I will be collecting this on Monday at 9.30pm The line manager is also one of three directors. They are the three shareholders in the business. My line manager/director is not the one who phoned and dismissed me. I will write to the other two directors regarding the attempted hijacking of my account and I will mention the large gain my line manager will of made from my dismissal. I have collected a good amount of evidence and I have taken full notes on phone calls and what was said and when it was said and I do have evidence that before my employment was officially terminated but whilst on suspension, my line manager moved in and closed one of my large deals and my accounts were reallocated to other members of the sales team. This apparently happened before they had made a decision on me. As for the confusion in the way I was dismissed, what has been written here is very helpful and possibly the one sticky point I can get them on. I am a member of BNI and made a few phone calls this afternoon. I’m now reassured that other members are rallying round to find me a solicitor who can properly advise me.

I don't smoke and although I don't allow people to smoke in our home, outdoor smokers really don't bother me, unless of course they are all standing on the pavement drunk outside a pub. I find these new suggested regulations ridiculous and just wish the general public would stand up and say, "ENOUGH"

I have been working selling data information for the past six months. For six months I have worked on a minimum wage whilst working towards commission. The commission target is set fairly high. During that six months I have become an expert at what I do. I have been rewarded monthly for winning conversions and lottery tickets for most sales in a week. I have worked diligently and earned myself some great testimonials from customers on LinkedIn. Six months in and this was the big one. I had two deals due to close this week that were huge. I’ve been working on both these deals for months and together they were worth millions to the company plus a very hefty monthly commission to me. At last all my hard work was going to pay off. On Tuesday I received a call from my managing director instructing me to leave the office immediately. He told me it was over a gross misconduct matter and he would be emailing me. Stunned I went home and read the email. I have been accused of suggesting a client send me a cheque in my name…in other words attempted theft. I was informed they would phone me for a conference call in 24 hours. 24 hours of wondering what the hell was going on before I got a phone call from my director saying he had viewed the evidence and was dismissing me immediately. I strongly protested my innocence and asked to be furnished with this evidence. I reminded him that it would be impossible to try and rob the company because no transaction of data is released until a payment has been made. He said he would call me back in 24 hours. At this point I really believed he was listening to me and that he would see that someone else on the sales team had tried to set me up but 24 hours later he called and told me that after reviewing this case he was firing me under constructive dismissal. I did ask him to go to the police with these allegations. He was after all accusing me of committing a crime he said that because he’s changed my dismissal from gross misconduct to constructive dismissal there was no need to take it further. On Wednesday night I received a message from LinkedIn saying someone had attempted to get into my account. The IP address was from a Mac within my office area. On Thursday night I got an email from my line manager asking me to pick up my things from reception. I checked his IP address and it’s the same as the person who tried to get access my Linked In account. I messaged him back and told him that I knew what he had done. I got no response to that allegation. I have just found out that on Thursday, before I was officially sacked, my line manager took over my two large deals and closed them. This means he’s now going to get the hefty commission each month that I should have been getting. Obviously it’s a dirty company and because I haven’t worked there long enough, it seems there is nothing I can do. As far as I’m concerned this company has used me and fired me fraudulently to gain themselves a hefty amount of money. What’s more and this is the bit that really smarts; they have damaged my impeccable reputation with false claims of attempted theft. It seems that unless I have very deep pockets (and I don’t because I’m now unemployed) I can’t fight back. Any ideas ? Has something similar happened to anyone else?