While it might not be something we’d go out of our way to find out, once we learn that the person signing our paycheck is doing something illegal it can be hard to forget.
Not everyone has scruples, but I like to believe that most people do.
It wasn’t hard for OP to learn how shady his employer was, because they weren’t hiding it.
Hired by a large short term lending company.
Part the job required reading into loan contracts. “Company A” is massively screwing over the most desperate and financially illiterate people (they call “valued customers”) by getting them to sign short term, very expensive, loans through coercion, knowing full well by their financial income, that they can never pay back the loan.
Bilking them out of every dollar, then repossessing their car.
I have to audit these loans, found instance after instance of predatory lending, and unethical lending practices.
He went along, documenting all the way.
I hate it, begin to start documenting violations out of gut instinct.
When they fired him, he took his documentation straight to the people who could do something about it.
Company A fired me for taking too much time off to be with my dad during his last days while he passed from cancer.
Company offers severance, then retracts it.
I decide to do something about “Company A’s” shady lending practices, report them to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with the help of my old boss.
We give info.
And luckily, that’s exactly what they did.
The Gov drops the hammer and they are now out 50+ million in fines. Fees, legal costs and lost business.
From that, they are still being sued left & right for being assholes that prey on the financially desperate folks by giving loans w/ APR’s of 280%+ – but they never articulated or explained that to the customers.
Feels good to try to do something righteous, and see change effected – I highly doubt I was the catalyst, just a puzzle piece to bring it all together.
I bet Reddit wants to shake this man’s hands!
You’ve gotta love when karma shows up.
These places honestly shouldn’t exist at all.
Of course the paper trail was key.
The whole industry is just gross.
No story is going to have it all.
I’m glad he was a good enough person to put a stop to it.
It’s appalling no one had done it already.
If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.