An employee-employer relationship should be relatively simple: The employee does the work, and the employer pays them for the work they have done. Easy right?
Well unfortunately, it seems like more and more employers try to do everything in their power to pay people as little as they can, or in some cases, not even pay them at all.
But every once in a while, a company makes their fatal mistake, and tries to screw the wrong person out of their money!
Check it out!
I help a local screen printing shop earn the reputation it deserves
I’m a screen printer. I accepted a new job at a different shop for $13/hr. Slightly better wage than my old job, and the place, let’s call it Waldren Sports Center/apparel, was much nicer.
They operate out of a large space in a local mall, featuring a sports/joke apparel shop, multipurpose gym, and a single automatic press in the back where they printed their stuff.
2 brothers, let’s call them Jake and Jarrett, own the company. Jake does most of the onsite management as Jarrett’s more busy with other career.
They’re running a squeaky clean M&R Diamondback press, and the shop’s super well organized.
It’s very climate controlled whereas my previous place was just a plain warehouse with no heat/ac whatsoever that would often surpass 100°F.
Schedule is perfect, and paychecks are direct deposited every Friday too, another huge plus. Obviously I’m excited.
OP said his new job started off great, until he got his first paycheck….
First 2 weeks go fantastic. That second Friday, I get my first check. It seems short, but I started mid pay period on sporadic hours so whatever.
One week later, and my next check is significantly larger, but it’s off. I go to Jake and ask him about seeing my pay stubs.
He tells me that all of that is handled through an outside company but Jarrett should have gotten my login info by then. He’ll be back on Monday.
I ask the other printer working there if that was normal with the pay stubs and he said not really but vouched for the two saying they probably just forgot.
But when OP went to talk to Jarrett on Monday, he was no help at all.
First thing Monday I go to Jarrett and ask about the pay stubs, who tells me that’s actually Jake’s responsibility to make sure I get the info I need. Ok…
So I go back to him, and ask him about it and he says that he’ll call the company and get my login info asap.
Suspicious, but not having much other option as I was already almost a month removed from my old job, I go to work. A little while later he comes in and gives me the login info.
And that’s when OP realized he was being stiffed.
We finish the job and take a quick break. I log in and check my pay stubs, and it turns out these guys are paying me $8.10 an hour, instead of the $13 I was promised.
Oh man. I’m livid. Obviously I gotta confront Jake about this. Never been through this before, but I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on here.
I quickly google conversation recording law, see Ohio is a 1 party consent state, meaning if I’m part of a conversation I record it is both legal and admissible in court.
So I set my phone to do just that, put it in my pocket, and go confront the dude.
Their conversation went something like this…
“Hey so I checked my pay stubs and you’re only paying me $8.10 an hour. Would you like to tell me what’s going on here?”
He looks kinda dumbfounded, shakes his head,”It’s supposed to $13 an hour.”
“Well, you’ve been paying me $8.10 and you owe me over $400.
“……Well that’s not supposed to happen. I’ll call them and see what’s up”
So I go back to the shop, stop the recording, and start setting up the next job to pass the time. I’m holding out hope that this is all just a misunderstanding, but I’m pretty sure it’s not.
Regardless, I gotta at least play ball while I follow through.
Meanwhile, Jake was promising OP would get his money in his next paycheck.
Jake comes in and says “We’ll have your money fixed on your next paycheck.”
Me- “With backpay?”
Jake – “Yes it’ll be on the check.”
So I begrudgingly wait for the next week. I wake up friday morning and check my bank account.
And much to my not surprise at this point, another minimum wage check and another few hundred dollars they owe me. So I decided to stay home that day.
But soon Jake was wondering what had happened to his favorite underpaid worker!
I get a text 15 minutes after the time I’m supposed to be there.
Jake – “Hey this is Jake what’s going on.”
Me – “You just sent me another minimum wage check. You owe me $700 dollars. I’m not coming in until you pay me the money that you owe me.”
Jake – “Well, I was gonna write a check for the difference, but I accept your no call no show, thanks.”
Me – “That’s not how this works dude. You still owe me $700 and now I have this text from you admitting it.”
After radio silence, OP went the classic route of payback: a strongly worded online review.
No more responses. So I do as any millennial would and leave a negative review on their page and start commenting on every single post they have, which get deleted immediately.
I get a text from Jake “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer. Is your mother’s address still correct?”
I never told them any personal details about family or living situation and this jerk wants to assume that while literally stealing what would be rent money.”
Me – ” Cool call them. They better have my check ready.”
But OP quickly realized an online review wasn’t enough for these scumbags, and started cooking up a much more drastic scheme!
I had the dude cold. I basically have a concrete admission of guilt from text and audio evidence. Now I just gotta figure out what to do.
I send a message to a “troubleshooter” reporter who made his career exposing these exact kinds of scams.
But he tells me that without me signing an employment contract I’m pretty screwed, and that maybe I can try small claims court but that probably wouldn’t work out.
I look both Jarrett and Jake Walden up in the local court of clerk websites just out of curiosity. Turns out Jake’s been sued multiple times for this exact thing, and lost twice.
And then it hits me. I’m in a band, and have paid facebook to promote posts advertising my concerts before. It’s cheap and it generally gets some results (at the time at least.)
So OP put his advertising experience to good use, and completely torched the two scammers!
I created a Craigslist post detailing this exact story, and I included links to his and the companies court records as a centerpiece.
I make a page on facebook called “Former Employee” and make one single post: “Avoid Waldren Sports Center/Apparel. Dishonest employer.”
I then sponsored the post. I put in $15 over the course of 10 days for ads.
I targeted them directly to people who liked their page, any of our local sports teams, screen printing, or the mall itself, who lived specifically within a few miles of their shop.
Within a couple days, the post had been shared over 2000 times.
Suddenly Jake wanted to cooperate, and was willing to pay him all the money he owed!
I got a message from him 4 days later begging me to take it down, and a check for every missing penny 2 days later.
I went to the bank to cash it, and told the 2 cashiers at the counter the story. We shared a laugh, because both of them had seen the post that morning.
I sent him a message saying “I got the money. Next time don’t try to scam somebody who’s much smarter than you.” That felt good.
I continued to share my story anytime it was relevant to a public post. I guess he saw one a few months later, messaged me again and said “We already gave you the money please stop.”
I told him “I gave you so many opportunities to do the right thing and you still went out of your way to be a piece of crap. You shouldn’t have done that.” That felt even better.
Wow, I’m sure all the other screen-printers these jerks scammed out of their wages had a big laugh once they saw that post!
It’s stories like these that warm your heart during the winter!
Reddit absolutely loved OP’s revenge, with this user saying stories like his were the ones he came to Reddit for in the first place.
This user suggested the only way OP should ever take the ad down is once he gets a little monetary incentive to do so!
And finally, the situation made this user think of a quote from Suits!
What did we learn from this story?
If you don’t pay any of your workers what you owe them, you’ve got a nasty bit of karma waiting to throw itself in your face!
Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.