- Jan 15, 2001
- 15,069
- 94
- 91
My wife has not been given her last paycheck from her previous job, and it has almost been 2 months. We have been constantly calling and stopping by asking someone to do something, but it has been far too long at this point and it's time to do something about it. The first thing we are going to do is send a grievance letter via certified mail to both the satellite office and corporate explaining the problem (she hasn't received her last paycheck) and the solution (give us the damn paycheck). If that doesn't work, we will then proceed with some type of legal action which I would assume they want to avoid, but I don't know how to do this in a stern but non-threatening way.
She is owed money for the pay period between July 29th and August 11th. She should have received a paycheck on the following Friday (August 17th), even though her last day at work was on Friday August 10th. The people there have repeatedly dodged her calls and questions, and when she shows up in person they always shift responsibility to someone else. I know this is illegal but I do not know how to pursue it. I called my dad and her dad (both of them run medium to big businesses, 1000+ employees) and they both basically said this is not a matter to be handled lightly and is definitely illegal since they get tax write-offs and similar things based on wages they've paid out. Anyway, here is what I want to happen:
1) Send them a certified letter so someone at both places has to sign for it to start a paper trail
2) Get the paycheck after they get their asses into action to avoid legal trouble
If it doesn't work that easily, which I suspect it won't, then what do I do for number 3? The amount of money is somewhere in the $450-$500 range, which is substantial. She had to quit that job because she was offered a full time 1st grade teaching position and her previous employer was more of a daycare but with some teaching built-in (she was the only teacher).
Update
alrocky - Thanks for the information and template. I drafted a letter using it and have it ready to be sent off.
I filed a complaint with the CO DoL a few minutes ago and I called a lawyer to make sure I am doing this correctly. The DoL said I have up to 2 years to recover the paycheck, so time shouldn't be a problem here. They will receive my certified letter by the end of the week with a demand for payment of wages and a due date of next Friday. I also let them know the name of my lawyer as he is up to speed on the situation and if they are unable to hit the Friday deadline, they will receive a letter from him with a summons to small claims court. We don't want a penny more than what we are owed, so don't think we are sue happy. We just want the damn paycheck.
I'll update this thread in a few days when I hear back from them. I am sending 11 copies of the letter - 3 to people who work at the local office and 8 to corporate. Hopefully that will be annoying enough to make them take action.
Update 2
My wife got a call yesterday saying her check would be available for pick-up in the next 48 hours. What a bunch of bullshit. They told her several weeks ago they were "tracking" the check and were in the process of voiding it. This may have worked on us except my wife and her family own a chocolate factory and have had to void checks several times over the last 5 years. It takes less than 1 week for the whole process, including mailing it. Before we voiced a complaint and basically threatened with litigation, it was taking them upwards of a month. All of a sudden it will be ready in the next 48 hours.
Also, and this is the icing on the already delicious cake, the morons couldn't read the demand for payment of wages form correctly. Click here to read it for yourself. There are 2 sections in this form, one which is if you no longer work there and one if you still do work there. She checked the box that says:
I'll update again at the end of tomorrow if we actually received the check. If we don't have it and they lied to us again, I'm going to steamroll them for wasting this much of my wife's time. We will go to court and fully exercise our right to collect:
Update 3
Last Wednesday my wife went back armed with the Demand for Payment of Wages form and some attitude. It worked out nicely that the district manager was there when my wife walked in and took the form out of her hand immediately. The woman who has been jerking us around reports to the DM and my wife made sure to point this out. The DM called after she left and said you will have your paycheck in 48 hours after reading over the form and coming to understand that it's been almost 2 months since the paycheck was due. This apparently did not make her very happy with the office manager as you can imagine.
Friday night rolls around and there has been no phone call or any sign of the paycheck. Monday was a holiday so we didn't expect it then either, but still no one called us. I was getting ready to go there myself and give them a blunt, non-violent but threatening ultimatum about the paycheck because of all of the lies. First it was "your check is in the mail", then it was "it's processing", and then it was "you'll have it in 48 hours". Luckily the check showed up on Tuesday and they called my wife before my lunch break because I was heading over there. I told my boss what was going on in case I didn't make it back in my normal lunch break window. It actually was a let down because I was looking forward to unloading on these people for jerking my wife around this much. Oh well, at least we got the paycheck. :thumbsup:
She is owed money for the pay period between July 29th and August 11th. She should have received a paycheck on the following Friday (August 17th), even though her last day at work was on Friday August 10th. The people there have repeatedly dodged her calls and questions, and when she shows up in person they always shift responsibility to someone else. I know this is illegal but I do not know how to pursue it. I called my dad and her dad (both of them run medium to big businesses, 1000+ employees) and they both basically said this is not a matter to be handled lightly and is definitely illegal since they get tax write-offs and similar things based on wages they've paid out. Anyway, here is what I want to happen:
1) Send them a certified letter so someone at both places has to sign for it to start a paper trail
2) Get the paycheck after they get their asses into action to avoid legal trouble
If it doesn't work that easily, which I suspect it won't, then what do I do for number 3? The amount of money is somewhere in the $450-$500 range, which is substantial. She had to quit that job because she was offered a full time 1st grade teaching position and her previous employer was more of a daycare but with some teaching built-in (she was the only teacher).
Update
alrocky - Thanks for the information and template. I drafted a letter using it and have it ready to be sent off.
I filed a complaint with the CO DoL a few minutes ago and I called a lawyer to make sure I am doing this correctly. The DoL said I have up to 2 years to recover the paycheck, so time shouldn't be a problem here. They will receive my certified letter by the end of the week with a demand for payment of wages and a due date of next Friday. I also let them know the name of my lawyer as he is up to speed on the situation and if they are unable to hit the Friday deadline, they will receive a letter from him with a summons to small claims court. We don't want a penny more than what we are owed, so don't think we are sue happy. We just want the damn paycheck.
I'll update this thread in a few days when I hear back from them. I am sending 11 copies of the letter - 3 to people who work at the local office and 8 to corporate. Hopefully that will be annoying enough to make them take action.
Update 2
My wife got a call yesterday saying her check would be available for pick-up in the next 48 hours. What a bunch of bullshit. They told her several weeks ago they were "tracking" the check and were in the process of voiding it. This may have worked on us except my wife and her family own a chocolate factory and have had to void checks several times over the last 5 years. It takes less than 1 week for the whole process, including mailing it. Before we voiced a complaint and basically threatened with litigation, it was taking them upwards of a month. All of a sudden it will be ready in the next 48 hours.
Also, and this is the icing on the already delicious cake, the morons couldn't read the demand for payment of wages form correctly. Click here to read it for yourself. There are 2 sections in this form, one which is if you no longer work there and one if you still do work there. She checked the box that says:
as she terminated her employment there. She then checked the box in that section that says she willingly terminated her employment as seen here:
The moron called my wife and said "I don't understand why you think were owed the money in 24 hours." My wife said "I didn't think that. I thought I was owed the money the next Friday when paychecks were sent out, like it says on the form." My wife then read the form to her and explained to her that she didn't check the box for that section. This kind of stupidity flabbergasts me.
I'll update again at the end of tomorrow if we actually received the check. If we don't have it and they lied to us again, I'm going to steamroll them for wasting this much of my wife's time. We will go to court and fully exercise our right to collect:
Not because I want to be litigious or sue for money we don't deserve, but we have wasted so much time talking to these idiots that it is getting ridiculous.
Update 3
Last Wednesday my wife went back armed with the Demand for Payment of Wages form and some attitude. It worked out nicely that the district manager was there when my wife walked in and took the form out of her hand immediately. The woman who has been jerking us around reports to the DM and my wife made sure to point this out. The DM called after she left and said you will have your paycheck in 48 hours after reading over the form and coming to understand that it's been almost 2 months since the paycheck was due. This apparently did not make her very happy with the office manager as you can imagine.
Friday night rolls around and there has been no phone call or any sign of the paycheck. Monday was a holiday so we didn't expect it then either, but still no one called us. I was getting ready to go there myself and give them a blunt, non-violent but threatening ultimatum about the paycheck because of all of the lies. First it was "your check is in the mail", then it was "it's processing", and then it was "you'll have it in 48 hours". Luckily the check showed up on Tuesday and they called my wife before my lunch break because I was heading over there. I told my boss what was going on in case I didn't make it back in my normal lunch break window. It actually was a let down because I was looking forward to unloading on these people for jerking my wife around this much. Oh well, at least we got the paycheck. :thumbsup:
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