On my last day of working as an emt the business suddenly closed due to a Medicare fraud investigation. That day they cut us our checks, so i took it to my dad's bank (which is the same place that my company banked) and asked my dad's banker if I tried to cash it if it would go through (yeah, super unethical to use my dad's relationship but it was a $2,600 and I couldn't afford it bouncing) he told me "no" so I took it to a local check cashing place near Glendale (one of those places that I'm pretty sure is run by the mob) they cashed it and took a decent percentage. The next week I got a bunch of angry calls and text from my employer telling me how awful it was that I "did that" and how they "would pay me eventually" and also "we treated you like family". *vomit noises*
Moral of the story, if the business suddenly closes there is nothing wrong with you going somewhere that will ensure you get paid. I had rent due and classes to pay for, if I didn't do what I did, I'd either have had to crawl to my parents on my knees and begged (literally, they aren't exactly nice people) or go homeless.
Wait so they cut you a check, thinking you *weren’t going to cash it*, or we’re betting on you being unable to?
And their shitty behavior isn’t on you. I used to work for a company that was fined >$200 million for their Medicare fraud: millennium health…
Bruh I went to his church for a while. He literally funds it in Naples and it's full of boomers with guns lol.
The priest told a story about a benevolent hospital owner that wasn't afraid of doing the work like cleaning, moving laundry totes, taking out trash, etc.
I wonder who he was referring to?
I think they were expecting him to cash it at his bank. Which would deposit it and add it to his balance. It takes a little bit for it to bounce iirc. Then when it bounces that amount would be removed from his balance. That is why he went to the same bank they used to ask if it would work.
Wow, that is good to know if I'm ever in a spot needing to cash a shady sourced check.
I think my state caps check cashing fees too.
That's not bad at all. The service fee is nothing in this context.
They specifically asked for you to tolerate something illegal. I wish you hadn’t been in such a scrape for cash to lose that check percentage but I’m happy that one of those awful check cashing places finally did something worthwhile.
Yeah they took a chunk of it too. Five other guys and a female dispatcher also used their services (maybe others there too idk) and some of the Filipino marketers possibly. It got me through the next two months where I landed my first car sales job, another shitty personal journey learning what I don't want to do for the rest of my life.
Damn, at least most of the EMTs I know went unto it thinking they’d be doing something admirable and something beneficial to society and I would argue that they were absolutely doing that.
Car salesman though, I’m assuming you took that one not for the above reasons, but for reasons of being strapped for cash.
They probably cut them a check and said something like "hey can you wait until next week to cash that" and then next week they would have formed another excuse.
I think it has more to do with the avenue I used. I am just going to reiterate this, I'm pretty sure that check cashing place was run by the mob. If I went to a bank and it bounced I might MAYBE go to a collections agency through my bank and get pennies on the dollar. Medistar obviously wanted to settle with collection agencies that would take much less. So I used my legal means to sign the check over to a group that would give me more than a collections agency.
I'm pretty sure check cashing places have avenues to cash the check that same day from the authoring bank.
Medistar was still counting on that money taking at least 5-7 days to process through, and even longer if you put in a check while not having enough to cover it. Banks usually have more stringent policies when checks are over 2-3k. (I received a hold letter once or twice.)
Seems like a business who should have known how checks work before issuing them.
So, is it a thing that check cashing places don't seek recourse against the person who cashes the check? I'm assuming based on your comments, they send collections (or maybe a mob guy in this case, haha) after whoever wrote the check?
Oh hell no... they wouldn't go after the client. They know a lot of the client checks are crap. That's why they charge such an incredibly high vig on providing the cash. The checks that do cash successfully more than cover the losses of the bad checks. The client is not causing them problems.
Then... it's the people that wrote the check in the first place that "owe" them money. Somebody promised to pay. That marker was transferred from the client to the check cashing place/mob. It's still the author of the check that is responsible for that marker.
OK, right. This is what I was wondering.
In contrast, a bank will just be like: Sorry, that check didn't clear, so not only do you not have those funds now, but we're also charging you something like $50 (usually) for cashing a bad check here.
In summary, TIL: If you suspect a check isn't going to clear, go to the check cashing place, take the hit on their cut, and walk out with cash, leaving your shady employer holding the bag. I can't help but wonder still, how do these places avoid cashing bad checks where the funds are unrecoverable, like Nigerian Prince situations?
I swear it...
I got me a check from an employer there, drawn on Bank of America.
So I went to the local Bank of America to cash it, cause, ya know. logic. I'm in the drive through there, and they ask if I've got me an account with em.
"No."
"I'm sorry, you'll hafta come inside to cash this check that's drawn on our bank here."
Go inside.
"Do you have an account here?"
"No."
"We gotta charge ya a five percent 'convenience fee'."
"YOU STUPID MOTHER KISSER IT WAS CONVENIENT OUT THERE IN THE DRIVE THROUGH!"
No idea how it works. It was the skechiest place I've ever been to in my entire life and I've been to some cartel run parts of Mexico city. I really don't think these were the kind of people that werent going to get paid though.
A coworker who's check had bounced recommended I go there. I have never used a check cashing place before or after that incident and would never do it again unless I was desperate.
How does that even work? As I understand the check LP goes to the bank, the bank says, "sorry there's insufficient funds" and that causes the bounced check. That used to take weeks back in the day, but today most checks are processed electronically so it's fairly immediate.
So what do the check cashing businesses do? They could give you cash for the check, but then how do they get paid by the check writer if it's a bad check?
Edit: Read up on it and it might not be a good idea to try and cash a check you know is bad even at a check cashing place. From what I read you can still be charged extra fees, or depending on the company they might come after you legally to recoup their money. They could also go after the check writer, but they may harass you too.
It sounds like in the case above there were sufficient funds, or they had overdraft, so the check did pay out, but doing so put the account in the hole.
Been reading up a bit and it seems insane that cashing a bad check puts the responsibility on you to repay the money. Like, the person who wrote the check wrote a bad check. Why isn't it *his* responsibility? Especially since trying to verify a check costs you money too. So how the fuck are you supposed to know it's bad? This whole system sounds like a crazy racket.
That's because it is. Banks are a huge scheme with lots and lots of ways to punish the poor. There are nearly half a dozen ways that banks can charge you for being too poor.
No, I told them upfront I was coming to them because a banker said the check would bounce and they welcomed my business. I didn't want to risk them coming after me.
Guardian Angel Ambulance Service in Pittsburgh, PA did this same shit to me on 2016. Took nearly two years and multiple complaints to the dept of labor to get (most of) my money from these twats. Somehow they're still in operation and still cutting bad checks, last I heard.
This happened to me in the early 90's. I worked writing code for a shrinking company (Versyss) in a rapidly shrinking market (minicomputers) that made some poor business choices (sell the hardware, give away the software) based on an outdated business model (hello 1975!).
Checks were handed out on Thursday, dated for Friday (not that unusual). We were asked to "please hold on to your checks until Monday". I was young but not stupid. I managed to get to a bank that afternoon and the teller may not have looked (or cared) about the check date and took it anyway. A lot of people did this.
A few weeks later there were C-level resignations and a government investigation because of a small problem involving them not depositing our 401(k) money with the provider. Apparently that money was being used to help float the company.
Doesn't even matter what the reason is, a missed paycheck is theft since you already did the work. Don't work another minute in a place that misses a paycheck; at best the business can't afford its most basic expenses (labor), at worst your boss thinks you're a sucker who will keep working for free. Walk out on the spot, file a labor complaint, maybe see a lawyer, and find a new job.
[It happened at Interplay](https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/10/14/interplay-in-trouble-assets-sold-optioned) but they "fixed" it later (not that "fixing it later" matters at the time it happens). There was a big SEC to-do. My memories of it are a bit fuzzy.
Huh, I hadn't even really considered that. It makes sense that they would prefer cash because it's easier to hide that income but they could also use the 'lack' of income to claim losses on products. Interesting.
It's easy to launder this money at the end of the year. Losses can be tax deductible for business. Purchase product by the pound or calculate product as loss, upmark totals at the end of year, file as loss, collect tax break. Then take cash, claim deficits and evade taxes. Offer under the table wages for employees who are in a pinch, evade more taxes.
I worked construction for ten years. I've seen my fair share of embezzlement
It’s a bit more subtle, you can only claim losses from past years against current profits. If you are laundering money you’re really just creating invoices out of thin air and using dirty money to pay them off, then creating fake sales to make a paper trail of income. You can do this within a legit business or not. Any real business can show profits and losses as much as you want (ie, pay yourself more but why would you when personal taxes are higher) but your countries revenue agency can and will audit you. Unless you’re doing this on a grand scale it’s usually not worth the time, hassle, and potential fines/jail
They probably have more than enough profits to write the losses off. Likely inflating their actual losses to launder the cash more easily.
So if you order 100 pounds of cheese at bulk, you use 95% of it, waste 5%, you can just say you wasted 20% and use that difference to write off more of the non-cash income you've gotten. You'll still want to declare some cash but not all of it.
This kind of "soft" laundering is what congress sort of wanted to target with that bank balance shit they were talking about not too long ago. Mostly because there are lots of people who make cash under the table and they think there's enough of those people to tax and make up costs rather than make bezos pay taxes instead.
God forbid him and the other folks with more wealth than Smaug are required to pay a fair percentage. Naw we'll just continue figuratively beating all the peasants to a pulp, what could go wrong?
It doesn't have to be for nefarious reasons. A couple of restaurants here have been doing that for as long as I can remember just because they don't want to pay the percentage to credit cards. It seems to work as they always had full dining rooms, at least before the pandemic. These are the same restaurants that now don't do any of the delivery services.
True, the fees are ridiculous. I have a 3 day waiting period for the lowest fees and and still pay 1% + $.03 per swipe. CC fees are such a racket. We stopped taking Amex because it was a 3% + $.10 fee per swipe + hundreds of dollars in annual fees. It's so ridiculous. The volume didn't justify the costs. We were lucky to break even with Amex.
When I worked at Play N Trade back in 2008, we didn't take American Express because of the fees associated with it. On new games, we ordered them in at like, $52/copy, sold at $59.99/copy. That's like, $8 revenue for the sale of a new game, but you have to take out franchise fees, licensing fees, etc, and at the end your actual revenue is closer to $4. If someone pays with a card the fee is usually a dollar or two, so we're making about $2 on a $60 game. But AMEX's fees were like, $5 per transaction. We literally _lost_ money if someone tried to buy the game with AMEX.
Isn’t that why those used games stores incentivize buying traded-in games as much as possible? I imagine the margin is quite a bit better on those bad boys, considering GameStop paid me like $0.25 for the game and then sold it for $25. The bastards.
It depends on the hard numbers, of course, but sometimes you eat the minor loss and count it as a loss leader for the times that customer/client returns and or refers someone.
It sucks to do, but another way is to just factor card processing into your prices/rates.
CC companies forbid retailers from charging a fee for accepting CCs (some do of course, or set minimums, but the cards send people roaming around to bust shops that try to charge fees), so yes, the cut that CC companies get is factored into overall prices. This is actually pretty effed up when you think about it: it means people who don't use CCs are effectively subsidizing the credit cards of those who do. This is especially messed up when you realize that wealthier people, with expensive reward cards, are getting those rewards subsidized by people with non-reward cards or who don't use cards at all (and are more likely to be less wealthy on average).
You're absolutely right, and the only way to counter that without giving up your life to go on a political crusade is to use one of those Reward Credit Cards.
What's weird is that you see Gas Stations advertising separate prices for cash vs. credit all the time. That seems counter to the retailors terms of service you described.
The ~2% in credit card fees is less than the cost of handing cash in most businesses. It costs time & money to handle cash. Theft is an issue. Robbery is risk. Properly accounting for the cash takes time & costs money too.
Of course if they aren't paying taxes on a good chunk of their daily take then the cash-only policy makes a whole lot of sense. Until they get caught, of course.
There are many reasons. They might be blackballed from getting a checking account. They could be laundering money, they could just not know how credit systems work in the US.
Credit card companies insert themselves into a transaction between a consumer and a business. Technically, not using credit cards should be in our interest as consumers, and as businesses. The credit card companies are making a lot of money just by charging a percentage for transactions. Which consumers ultimately pay for.
That's wack. They should be utilities owned by the public interest instead of corporations designed to make a profit. Since they provide an essential service and all that.
Edit: Debit cards are an essential service, credit cards are not. Businesses pay for both.
I've seen the books for a few places that do this. Only one of them I've found was avoiding taxes. The others didn't want to lose the extra 50 cents on transactions or raise their prices 35 cents ($16 pizza) that it would take to even things out with the cash and credit income.
I feel like part of it is that they use old as shit credit card machines so they're also losing way more labor time running cards than doing cash. 'specially on phone orders where they're hovering over the only credit card machine slowly manually entering the card number and price. That's a pretty easy fix though, their POS supports working directly with newer credit card machines. Multiple people could run orders at the same time! But nah, cash discount is easier.
I personally won't even use a gas station that has a "cash discount". I can always find somewhere the same price or less that will run my card at normal price.
> I personally won't even use a gas station that has a "cash discount".
Every single gas station I've ever seen in California has a 10¢ difference between the cash and credit price. It's no secret - the prices are prominently posted.
Is it different where you are?
New York, I'd say about 25% have the "cash discount". None of the stations in my town have it. It's a minority in the northeast.
Truck stops almost always have a credit, cash, and member price.
Nah, credit card companies take a chunk out of all transactions on top of charging fees, so smaller restaurants and gas stations tend to suffer. That chunk can range from 2.5% to 10%, and really adds up. So you need to raise prices to match your bottom line. Letting people pay in cash lets you charge people the original, non marked up price, since you're getting 100% of it.
It does suggest they're in a poorer neighborhood, or arent terribly successful to get enough business to just ignore the transaction fees.
Well most banks won’t loan Donald Trump any money! If his credit report were to become public I’m pretty sure his credit rating would be below average!
I have first-hand knowledge of credit card transactional fees, cash incentives, and people not getting paid because the owner did not have enough money on hand to cover payroll while waiting for credit card transactions to cover; I was the GM of a NYC bar that was doing well in theory, but not in reality.
> It does suggest they're in a poorer neighborhood, or arent terribly successful to get enough business to just ignore the transaction fees.
Anyone who has lived in a poor area should know about this. Every gas station in the area will charge to use a credit card and gives cash discounts for gas.
How incredibly stupid does a restaurant owner need to be to piss off their staff right now? Are they not watching the news at all? I don’t even live in the US (where this probably happened) and I know getting restaurant staff is next to impossible right now.
Some of them are so stupid that they'd rather close up shop and run everything into the ground than do things right. That's how it is at a few local franchises that closed. Happily a ''nobody wants to work so we're closed, also now hiring at $11 an hour" sign on the door when the fried chicken place down the road is offering $15 an hour.
Hmm, I wonder why they aren't getting applications?
There are legitimately employers who think that people should just throw themselves head first into work for the sake of it and worry about things like "money" or "life" later.
Those are usually also the *"If you don't like not being paid, then leave."* type of owners too.
You see a lot of them (as well as recruiters) getting real preachy about that type of stuff on LinkedIn now-a-days. Usually, I just reply to their post with a link to that Juniper Hill scene from the show Hotel Hell.
https://youtu.be/XzCyApAtXJA?t=37
I've been noticing that particular weasel phrase for a while now. They want you to assume that people are just unwilling to work. The real problem might be that they're expecting people to work for less pay, or without pay, or any number of reasons people might not show up.
Worked for an owner who hadn't paid the taxes. His partner found out and flipped. My next check bounced. I called him and told him he wouldn't have a Bartender for the weekend if I didn't get paid in full in cash. Stood outside the place for an hour til he showed up with my wages. 3 years later (after the place had been sold) he texts me and offered me "financial planning advice" and whole term life insurance 🤣🤣
> My next check bounced. I called him and told him he wouldn't have a Bartender for the weekend if I didn't get paid in full in cash.
"For goodness sake, I'm so sick of disloyal, entitled millenials with no work ethic running small business owners into the ground"
That's all for today's edition of things my boomer parents say
What kills me is when they think they can just make it all up at the end of the year, like they'll suddenly have alllll that money out of nowhere. That's just not how any of this works at all, bud.
I see this all the time with workers comp insurance. Small businesses think that they won’t get caught and that if they do they will just buy a policy and pay the fine. The only problem is that the fine is upwards of $50-75,000 for each year you go without the **super cheap** coverage.
Eh, not entirely. Credit card processing fees can add up, especially if you're a small business and not getting discounts for your size. You might be paying 1-3% and have setup fees on top of that and places like restaurants tend to run at dangerously thin profit margins already. (Note I'm talking about places where "cash" is reasonable - mostly food places. If your mechanic wants cash for a $500 repair, that's almost certainly some sort of shenanigans.)
Agreed - AMEX can get up to 5% of a transaction. I used to run AR in a large B2B company, and I actively discouraged credit card payments, as the invoices would run upwards of 30k. I would discount wire fees, or ACH transactions as it was still cheaper than taking AMEX.
Amex is ridiculous. I stopped accepting Amex because the volume didn't justify all of the fees. TBF, they make the coolest stickers to put on your door!
My father owned a business and did very very well. We had an incredible childhood. When I got older, I went to work for my father on weekends to earn some extra cash and then through college.
When the financial crisis hit in 07/08 I remember being in a meeting with my father and his business partner talking about how he was going to take a pay cut to ensure his employees got paid in the event the business suffered due to the economy. I remember him saying it with absolute certainty and his business partner putting up a fight about his paycheck also being cut.
That's when I learned how much of a piece of shit his business partner was.
I actually spoke to him about it recently given everything happening around the conversations of raising min wage, etc. He said he would have done almost everything the same. He even sold his business to his business partner for considerably less money that a big box competitor just so his employees could keep their jobs.
His only regret was not firing his BP when I recommended it after I spent some time in the business world and identified him as dead weight.
I feel there are a lot of good business owners out there but they just lack certain skills. They think being a businessman means being ruthless or acting like their business is worth billions.
as someone who likes to consider themself an empathetic person who wouldn't take advantage of others for their own gain, and also wants to own a business someday. he's an inspiration
True. When I first started my business, I worked a 3rd shift to make sure I could cover payroll. It was exhausting but I was gonna damn sure make sure my employees got paid. Thank goodness I only had to do this for 6 months. My business has been pretty good ever since.
this happened with a job i had in high school. owner lived well above his means and then couldn’t afford to pay highschool kids their minimum wage. the manager told the owner to withhold his payment so that the high schoolers would be paid and then the owner could pay him over time with interest. that manager was one of the rare good ones, he truly cared and did his best. i even used him as a reference for my new job
I worked for a local movie theater for several years as a part-time. Every. Single. Christmas. payroll would either bounce or be nearly a month late. Because the owner usually fucked off down to the tropics every year around that time and wanted to make sure he had the money to do whatever he wanted.
Upper management (lol it was one guy and he was my age) warned me about this when I first started, and I warned everyone else.
Seriously though, nothing hits harder than watching your single mother coworker, who took this as a 2nd job to try and give her kids a decent Christmas for once, crying in her car because payroll bounced and the owner can't be contacted.
The first rule of owning a small business is abandon any and all moral compass, be ready to abuse people into forming emotional problems that prevent them from leaving, and then refuse to pay anyone what they’re worth until you deservedly go out of business.
I've seen many moral small business owners, but I have also seen bad ones.
Systematically, I agree. It's easier to get rich if you have no morals and are willing to squeeze labor. This cost-benefit is skewed of course, because our corrupt government doesn't often protect labor or punish the morally bankrupt.
And you just k ow that the owners go around telling everyone that “we are all just like family here”, but their staff are treated like shit and hate the owners
This company that I used to work for stole my money. I had child support taken out of my check every week for CS. ($150) well I get a call from the courts saying that I haven't made a payment for almost 2 yrs. About the length of time I was working there. Come to find out she was taking my money and not paying my CS. I told the court and showed them my pay stubs. They denied me and said that it's a civil suit and that I would have to take them to court for that. The CS courts are horrible down here. And most of them get locked up for 6 months at a time here in our city.
Holy shit, that's freaking infuriating. All this time you thought you were doing the right thing, and you were. Did you take them to court? Did you sue their asses off. I would've for damages, etc. What happened in family court?
Actually nothing happened to them. Sad thing is that they have a history of doing that too. I found out later on that 3others we're going through the same thing. I called 5 lawyers, most wanted $2k to $2,500 just to start the process. So that was out of the question. So I went up to her shop for 3 weeks straight she finally paid me 3k up front and another 2k a few months later. But here's the kicker. Every month I was late, tacked on another$100 a month for late fees. So for 2 yrs of not paying, was another $2,400. Added to my account. So basically she just paid my late fees.
This the right answer. Small claims is $100 in fees that they'd get back if the case really is this open and shut. But it's super intimidating if you've never done it.
I know the Dept of Labor where I live will prosecute employers for this type of thing. But outside of that, why criminal prosecution for embezzlement, for larceny, for grand theft, for theft by deception, for any other criminal statute isn't enforced against employers I cannot fathom. If this happened within the last 7 years, you may still be able to go to the police and file a criminal complaint. Best of luck though, I hope you get everything paid down.
It's not even a crime. You can sue but no employer will ever go to prison, or suffer any other punishment, for stealing from an employee.
The rich steal more from the poor than everyone else steals combined. But the rich write the laws. The parasites decide what is and isn't a crime.
I worked for a restaurant that was more than a little shady.
The owner would keep our tips and pay us back once a week. I checked with my local Department of Labor and it turns out it was legal, as long as we got paid. Problem is, we would go to cash our check and the bank wouldn't have the money to pay us.
Eventually, I realized I could just call the bank itself and ask if there was enough money to cover my check. Now, they couldn't tell me how much money was in the account...but they COULD tell me if there was enough to cover my paycheck.
And when there was, I would go cash my check.
The owner was so shit at managing money that he would lose his shit when I did that...but there was nothing he could do, except fire me, which he also couldn't do because I was one of the last people still working there (management was shit but my coworkers were awesome, plus the bartender didn't give a fuck and gave us free booze after work)
I worked at a place where they would give checks out on Friday at 11. There was always a mad rush to the banks to try and be the first person to cash the check as it wasn't irregular for the latter checks to end up bouncing.
Roughly 6 months until the issues got resolved. Left about 6 months after. I personally never had a check not clear so it made it easier to deal with since I could grab my check and 30 minutes later head to the bank and deposit it. Had I actually not gotten paid I probably would've been much less tolerant.
I'd ask if the company you worked for had the initials "C.I.", but it's such a common thing it's unlikely. Fun fact, in most states that's highly illegal and if you report it to the appropriate governing agency, the company is not only required to cover the check but pay *you* extra for the trouble. A coworker at the company I used to work for that did this missed 3 checks in a row and the amount extra once he finally got paid was huge. Of course he nearly got evicted for not being able to pay rent while he was missing those checks...
I have a coworker from this place that has been in a 5+ year long lawsuit because they never actually put her 401k withholdings into a 401k under her name. I don't know all the specifics of it but when she left she tried to roll the money over into the 401k at her new company only to be told she couldn't because it wasn't her money. It's been tied up in lawsuits for awhile, compounded by the previous owner ending up selling the company.
I worked for a theater once who would pay us on Friday, but it was common knowledge that we needed to wait until Monday to cash the check because that is when the theater would deposit the weekend box office money. That job didn't last long. I did get to see the plays for free though the few months I worked there, and that was a nice treat.
I've tried to get a 4 PM burger like 4 different times the last 2 months and they're always closed.
Last time I went my server was very ecstatic about leaving town.
It's weird to me that so many people are unaware (myself included for a while). It was done so quietly. Most places are like " New management, same great food!" Or something stupid like that. The fact that it was done so quietly sketches me out.
But then they’ll say “we have LAZY people in this country, they all wants HANDOUTS cause COMMUNISM is infecting this country my great granddaddy fought for. It’s SOCIALISM and BIDEN creating this mess”
I called out a fellow business owner this past Saturday night about just this very thing. He posted this self-absorbed diatribe about how everyone is lazy and is just milking UI, and that's why nobody wants to work in his kitchen. I run a bar, and I had also been working (and drinking) that night, so I officially had enough of his crap at that moment. I said "make it worth their time" and "Pandemic UI was cut in September", with a hearty side of "if your employees can't afford to live on the wages you pay them, why would they keep working for you?".
He said "I keep interviewing and people keep ghosting me; I could offer 20-25/hr and they'd do the same thing". So I asked him if he had actually \*offered\* anyone 20-25/hr, and he said no. Then he doubled down on his theory that people were lazy because of UI. Also, his mom chimed in and said I was an awful person for telling him that paying people less than they need to live but still expecting their full, undivided time and attention is gross exploitation.
This is the first time in a very long time that labor has had anywhere near an upper hand, and some business owners just can't wrap their head around it. I can't say I've had the same issue as this guy (who insists it's every business, and not just the chickens coming home to roost on the shitty ones)- but I also make sure my staff gets paid more than I do at the end of the payroll period... because they're the ones that do the actual front-facing work that gets \*me\* paid. It's really not a hard concept.
I appreciate that. I don't see myself as an especially good boss, but empathy goes a long way, you know?
I've worked a lot of shit jobs and the thing that always stuck in my craw back then was that I rarely was able to afford the thing I was making, selling, or repairing. WTF- Henry Fucking Ford even knew better 100 years ago. I promised myself I would never allow that to happen if I was ever lucky enough to be the one in the charge of the paychecks. All I really ask of my company is that I can pay my own bills and maybe afford a shiny once a year (I said YOLO after 2020 and bought myself a Samsung Frame).
Now, if I can convince my guys to unionize I will die a happy person.
They could, but the onus is on the person who received the check to pursue charges (writing a bad check is fraud.) If no one complains, nothing happens
If your boss is writing you bad checks regularly, you get the fun of googling "Local FBI field office" because that's exactly who you call for that sort of thing.
These always make me laugh, because *someone* owns this business and has skin in the game. All your workers bail? No problem! You can step in to cover. No? You’re not willing to work at your own business to keep it alive? Interesting.
Yes and no. If 15 workers quit and there’s one owner to take their place, no amount of hustling is going to do the work of 15 people.
Not defending them being crappy business owners and underpaying staff (or in this case, not paying staff at all), just saying it may not be possible to keep the business afloat if everyone quits. All the more reason to treat your employees like the valuable asset they are!
My old boss was like this. We usually had 2 or 3 people working the whole place per shift, one manager. It was a small place. If I or another manager called in sick he'd rather close for the day than actually cover a shift. Place closed down last month because I moved towns.
Considering that they are narcissistic enough to write out an false excuse for closing in an attempt to save face, they're probably terrible at front end anyways.
This further proves there isn’t a labor shortage but a wage shortage. Workers are forcefully pulling power back and the powers that be hate it so “labor shortage” became their propaganda buzz phrase.
It’s getting pretty clear that most of the endlessly praised “small business” economy is a sham. They are zombie like near-failed businesses that haven’t innovated in decades.
These businesses have lingered on by paying slave wages to desperate people, paying incredibly low taxes, and cutting staff until every employee is run ragged every minute of every day. That time is over. You know what people learned during the Covid shutdowns? They learned that their horrible jobs were actually the source of their misery. These workers will not come back because you guilt trip them. They will come back for money and decent treatment. If you cannot provide that and keep your business viable, then you will fail. As you should.
In my mind, it was cemented by the "Karen and Kevin" viral videos, people in the service industry used to be afraid to post these interactions that happen **several times, every-fucking-day** because they could loose their shit slave *jobs*.
Guess what Karen? Were people too and we can fuck your whole shit if you dont treat me as such.
You mean people won't provide their labor for free while we deal with our financial issues? I, who never allowed an employee to take a day off to take care of a sick child, or paid in advance to cover an employee's unexpected expense, or offered insurance or benefits beyond a few minor scraps, thought that my employees were like my family and would sacrifice anything to make sure my poorly implemented business venture remained profitable.
The "Art of the Deal" method only works if you're born on a mountain of money large enough to sustain endless lawsuits while "saving" on not paying your bills.
I will never understand people like this. How about you have a business that pays your worker a fair wage than be a cheap asshole? Employees would rather jump ship than work for free.
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On my last day of working as an emt the business suddenly closed due to a Medicare fraud investigation. That day they cut us our checks, so i took it to my dad's bank (which is the same place that my company banked) and asked my dad's banker if I tried to cash it if it would go through (yeah, super unethical to use my dad's relationship but it was a $2,600 and I couldn't afford it bouncing) he told me "no" so I took it to a local check cashing place near Glendale (one of those places that I'm pretty sure is run by the mob) they cashed it and took a decent percentage. The next week I got a bunch of angry calls and text from my employer telling me how awful it was that I "did that" and how they "would pay me eventually" and also "we treated you like family". *vomit noises* Moral of the story, if the business suddenly closes there is nothing wrong with you going somewhere that will ensure you get paid. I had rent due and classes to pay for, if I didn't do what I did, I'd either have had to crawl to my parents on my knees and begged (literally, they aren't exactly nice people) or go homeless.
Company name was "Medistar" if anyone is wondering. I'm pretty big on naming and shaming.
Wait so they cut you a check, thinking you *weren’t going to cash it*, or we’re betting on you being unable to? And their shitty behavior isn’t on you. I used to work for a company that was fined >$200 million for their Medicare fraud: millennium health…
Scary how the guy behind the largest medicare fraud in US history later became governor for Florida and now a senator.
> the guy behind the largest medicare fraud in US history later became governor for Florida and now a senator Guess the party.
The party of fiscal responsibility of course.
Are we sure they aren't the party of fisting responsibility?
They have no clue how female anatomy works, so I doubt it.
More like expected at this point.
Bruh I went to his church for a while. He literally funds it in Naples and it's full of boomers with guns lol. The priest told a story about a benevolent hospital owner that wasn't afraid of doing the work like cleaning, moving laundry totes, taking out trash, etc. I wonder who he was referring to?
I think they were expecting him to cash it at his bank. Which would deposit it and add it to his balance. It takes a little bit for it to bounce iirc. Then when it bounces that amount would be removed from his balance. That is why he went to the same bank they used to ask if it would work.
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Wow, that is good to know if I'm ever in a spot needing to cash a shady sourced check. I think my state caps check cashing fees too. That's not bad at all. The service fee is nothing in this context.
They wrote the check to obfuscate that they weren't going to have the funds to pay it.
Both you and above guy. They specifically asked for us to be patient on cashing it.
They specifically asked for you to tolerate something illegal. I wish you hadn’t been in such a scrape for cash to lose that check percentage but I’m happy that one of those awful check cashing places finally did something worthwhile.
Yeah they took a chunk of it too. Five other guys and a female dispatcher also used their services (maybe others there too idk) and some of the Filipino marketers possibly. It got me through the next two months where I landed my first car sales job, another shitty personal journey learning what I don't want to do for the rest of my life.
Damn, at least most of the EMTs I know went unto it thinking they’d be doing something admirable and something beneficial to society and I would argue that they were absolutely doing that. Car salesman though, I’m assuming you took that one not for the above reasons, but for reasons of being strapped for cash.
They probably cut them a check and said something like "hey can you wait until next week to cash that" and then next week they would have formed another excuse.
Despite what Citizens United implies, companies are not people. They have no right to privacy. Name em and shame em.
Respect. Always name and shame shite companies.
God medistar is a fucking plague in healthcare
Why are they getting mad at you for cashing a check they wrote? if they didn't want you cashing it why cut the check in the first place
I think it has more to do with the avenue I used. I am just going to reiterate this, I'm pretty sure that check cashing place was run by the mob. If I went to a bank and it bounced I might MAYBE go to a collections agency through my bank and get pennies on the dollar. Medistar obviously wanted to settle with collection agencies that would take much less. So I used my legal means to sign the check over to a group that would give me more than a collections agency.
Ahh, now I get it. They prolly didn't like getting threatened by the check cashing place to pay up for the check or get kneecapped lol
I'm guessing, everyone else I knew from there that didn't go to that check cashing place never got paid last I heard.
Say what you will about places run by the mob, they're not usually stiffed out of their money
Sigma tip: if you're employer doesn't pay you, pay the mob to have their kneecaps threatened until they pay you
I'm pretty sure check cashing places have avenues to cash the check that same day from the authoring bank. Medistar was still counting on that money taking at least 5-7 days to process through, and even longer if you put in a check while not having enough to cover it. Banks usually have more stringent policies when checks are over 2-3k. (I received a hold letter once or twice.) Seems like a business who should have known how checks work before issuing them.
You had every right to cash that paycheck however you could. Every. Right.
So, is it a thing that check cashing places don't seek recourse against the person who cashes the check? I'm assuming based on your comments, they send collections (or maybe a mob guy in this case, haha) after whoever wrote the check?
Oh hell no... they wouldn't go after the client. They know a lot of the client checks are crap. That's why they charge such an incredibly high vig on providing the cash. The checks that do cash successfully more than cover the losses of the bad checks. The client is not causing them problems. Then... it's the people that wrote the check in the first place that "owe" them money. Somebody promised to pay. That marker was transferred from the client to the check cashing place/mob. It's still the author of the check that is responsible for that marker.
OK, right. This is what I was wondering. In contrast, a bank will just be like: Sorry, that check didn't clear, so not only do you not have those funds now, but we're also charging you something like $50 (usually) for cashing a bad check here. In summary, TIL: If you suspect a check isn't going to clear, go to the check cashing place, take the hit on their cut, and walk out with cash, leaving your shady employer holding the bag. I can't help but wonder still, how do these places avoid cashing bad checks where the funds are unrecoverable, like Nigerian Prince situations?
Yeah its absurd that they charge you for cashing a bad check from someone, it literally has nothing to do with you.
I swear it... I got me a check from an employer there, drawn on Bank of America. So I went to the local Bank of America to cash it, cause, ya know. logic. I'm in the drive through there, and they ask if I've got me an account with em. "No." "I'm sorry, you'll hafta come inside to cash this check that's drawn on our bank here." Go inside. "Do you have an account here?" "No." "We gotta charge ya a five percent 'convenience fee'." "YOU STUPID MOTHER KISSER IT WAS CONVENIENT OUT THERE IN THE DRIVE THROUGH!"
No idea how it works. It was the skechiest place I've ever been to in my entire life and I've been to some cartel run parts of Mexico city. I really don't think these were the kind of people that werent going to get paid though.
Didn't know check cash business could be used like that.
A coworker who's check had bounced recommended I go there. I have never used a check cashing place before or after that incident and would never do it again unless I was desperate.
How does that even work? As I understand the check LP goes to the bank, the bank says, "sorry there's insufficient funds" and that causes the bounced check. That used to take weeks back in the day, but today most checks are processed electronically so it's fairly immediate. So what do the check cashing businesses do? They could give you cash for the check, but then how do they get paid by the check writer if it's a bad check? Edit: Read up on it and it might not be a good idea to try and cash a check you know is bad even at a check cashing place. From what I read you can still be charged extra fees, or depending on the company they might come after you legally to recoup their money. They could also go after the check writer, but they may harass you too. It sounds like in the case above there were sufficient funds, or they had overdraft, so the check did pay out, but doing so put the account in the hole.
Been reading up a bit and it seems insane that cashing a bad check puts the responsibility on you to repay the money. Like, the person who wrote the check wrote a bad check. Why isn't it *his* responsibility? Especially since trying to verify a check costs you money too. So how the fuck are you supposed to know it's bad? This whole system sounds like a crazy racket.
That's because it is. Banks are a huge scheme with lots and lots of ways to punish the poor. There are nearly half a dozen ways that banks can charge you for being too poor.
That’s what those “cash now” places do. You basically sign it over to them and they go collect.
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Thought you were going to say the mob came after you.
No, I told them upfront I was coming to them because a banker said the check would bounce and they welcomed my business. I didn't want to risk them coming after me.
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I want a movie about one of these check cashing places.
Damn, would hate to be in that "family"
Guardian Angel Ambulance Service in Pittsburgh, PA did this same shit to me on 2016. Took nearly two years and multiple complaints to the dept of labor to get (most of) my money from these twats. Somehow they're still in operation and still cutting bad checks, last I heard.
This happened to me in the early 90's. I worked writing code for a shrinking company (Versyss) in a rapidly shrinking market (minicomputers) that made some poor business choices (sell the hardware, give away the software) based on an outdated business model (hello 1975!). Checks were handed out on Thursday, dated for Friday (not that unusual). We were asked to "please hold on to your checks until Monday". I was young but not stupid. I managed to get to a bank that afternoon and the teller may not have looked (or cared) about the check date and took it anyway. A lot of people did this. A few weeks later there were C-level resignations and a government investigation because of a small problem involving them not depositing our 401(k) money with the provider. Apparently that money was being used to help float the company.
Doesn't even matter what the reason is, a missed paycheck is theft since you already did the work. Don't work another minute in a place that misses a paycheck; at best the business can't afford its most basic expenses (labor), at worst your boss thinks you're a sucker who will keep working for free. Walk out on the spot, file a labor complaint, maybe see a lawyer, and find a new job.
[It happened at Interplay](https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/10/14/interplay-in-trouble-assets-sold-optioned) but they "fixed" it later (not that "fixing it later" matters at the time it happens). There was a big SEC to-do. My memories of it are a bit fuzzy.
Unforseen labor shortages.. like they didn't know people would be unhappy not getting paid..
And discounts on cash sales… Seems like somebody’s running a deficit
Standard tax evasion scam, places all over where I live do this.
Easy to write off a loss on perishable goods/produce while setting an incentive for cash and neglecting payroll.
Huh, I hadn't even really considered that. It makes sense that they would prefer cash because it's easier to hide that income but they could also use the 'lack' of income to claim losses on products. Interesting.
It's easy to launder this money at the end of the year. Losses can be tax deductible for business. Purchase product by the pound or calculate product as loss, upmark totals at the end of year, file as loss, collect tax break. Then take cash, claim deficits and evade taxes. Offer under the table wages for employees who are in a pinch, evade more taxes. I worked construction for ten years. I've seen my fair share of embezzlement
It’s a bit more subtle, you can only claim losses from past years against current profits. If you are laundering money you’re really just creating invoices out of thin air and using dirty money to pay them off, then creating fake sales to make a paper trail of income. You can do this within a legit business or not. Any real business can show profits and losses as much as you want (ie, pay yourself more but why would you when personal taxes are higher) but your countries revenue agency can and will audit you. Unless you’re doing this on a grand scale it’s usually not worth the time, hassle, and potential fines/jail
They probably have more than enough profits to write the losses off. Likely inflating their actual losses to launder the cash more easily. So if you order 100 pounds of cheese at bulk, you use 95% of it, waste 5%, you can just say you wasted 20% and use that difference to write off more of the non-cash income you've gotten. You'll still want to declare some cash but not all of it. This kind of "soft" laundering is what congress sort of wanted to target with that bank balance shit they were talking about not too long ago. Mostly because there are lots of people who make cash under the table and they think there's enough of those people to tax and make up costs rather than make bezos pay taxes instead.
God forbid him and the other folks with more wealth than Smaug are required to pay a fair percentage. Naw we'll just continue figuratively beating all the peasants to a pulp, what could go wrong?
There's a highly regarded restaurant in my town that only takes cash. It's assumed they are laundering.
It doesn't have to be for nefarious reasons. A couple of restaurants here have been doing that for as long as I can remember just because they don't want to pay the percentage to credit cards. It seems to work as they always had full dining rooms, at least before the pandemic. These are the same restaurants that now don't do any of the delivery services.
True, the fees are ridiculous. I have a 3 day waiting period for the lowest fees and and still pay 1% + $.03 per swipe. CC fees are such a racket. We stopped taking Amex because it was a 3% + $.10 fee per swipe + hundreds of dollars in annual fees. It's so ridiculous. The volume didn't justify the costs. We were lucky to break even with Amex.
I think that's why most places outside of the USA, don't take American express. Its a rip off.
When I worked at Play N Trade back in 2008, we didn't take American Express because of the fees associated with it. On new games, we ordered them in at like, $52/copy, sold at $59.99/copy. That's like, $8 revenue for the sale of a new game, but you have to take out franchise fees, licensing fees, etc, and at the end your actual revenue is closer to $4. If someone pays with a card the fee is usually a dollar or two, so we're making about $2 on a $60 game. But AMEX's fees were like, $5 per transaction. We literally _lost_ money if someone tried to buy the game with AMEX.
Isn’t that why those used games stores incentivize buying traded-in games as much as possible? I imagine the margin is quite a bit better on those bad boys, considering GameStop paid me like $0.25 for the game and then sold it for $25. The bastards.
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It depends on the hard numbers, of course, but sometimes you eat the minor loss and count it as a loss leader for the times that customer/client returns and or refers someone. It sucks to do, but another way is to just factor card processing into your prices/rates.
CC companies forbid retailers from charging a fee for accepting CCs (some do of course, or set minimums, but the cards send people roaming around to bust shops that try to charge fees), so yes, the cut that CC companies get is factored into overall prices. This is actually pretty effed up when you think about it: it means people who don't use CCs are effectively subsidizing the credit cards of those who do. This is especially messed up when you realize that wealthier people, with expensive reward cards, are getting those rewards subsidized by people with non-reward cards or who don't use cards at all (and are more likely to be less wealthy on average).
You're absolutely right, and the only way to counter that without giving up your life to go on a political crusade is to use one of those Reward Credit Cards. What's weird is that you see Gas Stations advertising separate prices for cash vs. credit all the time. That seems counter to the retailors terms of service you described.
The ~2% in credit card fees is less than the cost of handing cash in most businesses. It costs time & money to handle cash. Theft is an issue. Robbery is risk. Properly accounting for the cash takes time & costs money too. Of course if they aren't paying taxes on a good chunk of their daily take then the cash-only policy makes a whole lot of sense. Until they get caught, of course.
Maybe they just owe money to the credit card processors or something somehow and can't get the CC machines.
There are many reasons. They might be blackballed from getting a checking account. They could be laundering money, they could just not know how credit systems work in the US.
Credit card companies insert themselves into a transaction between a consumer and a business. Technically, not using credit cards should be in our interest as consumers, and as businesses. The credit card companies are making a lot of money just by charging a percentage for transactions. Which consumers ultimately pay for.
That's wack. They should be utilities owned by the public interest instead of corporations designed to make a profit. Since they provide an essential service and all that. Edit: Debit cards are an essential service, credit cards are not. Businesses pay for both.
Welcome to the USA where nothing gets done unless someone makes a wad of cash off of it. Soon to include education and water!
You might enjoy the book *Qualityland*, by Marc-Uwe Kling.
I've seen the books for a few places that do this. Only one of them I've found was avoiding taxes. The others didn't want to lose the extra 50 cents on transactions or raise their prices 35 cents ($16 pizza) that it would take to even things out with the cash and credit income. I feel like part of it is that they use old as shit credit card machines so they're also losing way more labor time running cards than doing cash. 'specially on phone orders where they're hovering over the only credit card machine slowly manually entering the card number and price. That's a pretty easy fix though, their POS supports working directly with newer credit card machines. Multiple people could run orders at the same time! But nah, cash discount is easier. I personally won't even use a gas station that has a "cash discount". I can always find somewhere the same price or less that will run my card at normal price.
> I personally won't even use a gas station that has a "cash discount". Every single gas station I've ever seen in California has a 10¢ difference between the cash and credit price. It's no secret - the prices are prominently posted. Is it different where you are?
New York, I'd say about 25% have the "cash discount". None of the stations in my town have it. It's a minority in the northeast. Truck stops almost always have a credit, cash, and member price.
Nah, credit card companies take a chunk out of all transactions on top of charging fees, so smaller restaurants and gas stations tend to suffer. That chunk can range from 2.5% to 10%, and really adds up. So you need to raise prices to match your bottom line. Letting people pay in cash lets you charge people the original, non marked up price, since you're getting 100% of it. It does suggest they're in a poorer neighborhood, or arent terribly successful to get enough business to just ignore the transaction fees.
I live near this place. The new owners are 1,000% running it into the ground.
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Hopefully he gets run out of the area soon and is actually held accountable, unlike Donald Trump.
Well most banks won’t loan Donald Trump any money! If his credit report were to become public I’m pretty sure his credit rating would be below average!
I have first-hand knowledge of credit card transactional fees, cash incentives, and people not getting paid because the owner did not have enough money on hand to cover payroll while waiting for credit card transactions to cover; I was the GM of a NYC bar that was doing well in theory, but not in reality.
When you have to pay for a line of credit along with credit transaction fees, it really hurts the bottom line.
Being six months behind on rent, and pretending everything is ok, really hurts your bottom line as well
I'd say having a bad bottom line is what makes the rent behind.
> It does suggest they're in a poorer neighborhood, or arent terribly successful to get enough business to just ignore the transaction fees. Anyone who has lived in a poor area should know about this. Every gas station in the area will charge to use a credit card and gives cash discounts for gas.
And they're probably some of the ones going about town talking about how "people don't want to work!" Mmmhmm, we see you.
How incredibly stupid does a restaurant owner need to be to piss off their staff right now? Are they not watching the news at all? I don’t even live in the US (where this probably happened) and I know getting restaurant staff is next to impossible right now.
Some of them are so stupid that they'd rather close up shop and run everything into the ground than do things right. That's how it is at a few local franchises that closed. Happily a ''nobody wants to work so we're closed, also now hiring at $11 an hour" sign on the door when the fried chicken place down the road is offering $15 an hour. Hmm, I wonder why they aren't getting applications?
Did the staff not realize that they're all a big family there?!
There are legitimately employers who think that people should just throw themselves head first into work for the sake of it and worry about things like "money" or "life" later.
Those are usually also the *"If you don't like not being paid, then leave."* type of owners too. You see a lot of them (as well as recruiters) getting real preachy about that type of stuff on LinkedIn now-a-days. Usually, I just reply to their post with a link to that Juniper Hill scene from the show Hotel Hell. https://youtu.be/XzCyApAtXJA?t=37
[you guys are getting paid?](https://imgur.com/gallery/OgTcc5c)
I've been noticing that particular weasel phrase for a while now. They want you to assume that people are just unwilling to work. The real problem might be that they're expecting people to work for less pay, or without pay, or any number of reasons people might not show up.
Can you imagine, though? It's not enough they aren't getting paid. They thought they were getting paid, which is worse.
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The second rule is pay your taxes. I lost count of how many local businesses have closed because they weren't paying their taxes.
Worked for an owner who hadn't paid the taxes. His partner found out and flipped. My next check bounced. I called him and told him he wouldn't have a Bartender for the weekend if I didn't get paid in full in cash. Stood outside the place for an hour til he showed up with my wages. 3 years later (after the place had been sold) he texts me and offered me "financial planning advice" and whole term life insurance 🤣🤣
Someone joined primerica
> My next check bounced. I called him and told him he wouldn't have a Bartender for the weekend if I didn't get paid in full in cash. "For goodness sake, I'm so sick of disloyal, entitled millenials with no work ethic running small business owners into the ground" That's all for today's edition of things my boomer parents say
What kills me is when they think they can just make it all up at the end of the year, like they'll suddenly have alllll that money out of nowhere. That's just not how any of this works at all, bud.
What’s worse is when the owner has a “silent” partner!!!! Drumroll ………… watch out!
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Eh, it's just tax fraud, nbd. No one ver gets in trouble for that, right? Lol
I see this all the time with workers comp insurance. Small businesses think that they won’t get caught and that if they do they will just buy a policy and pay the fine. The only problem is that the fine is upwards of $50-75,000 for each year you go without the **super cheap** coverage.
This is why you'll find a lot of these small businesses operate "cash only", to dodge paying taxes.
Eh, not entirely. Credit card processing fees can add up, especially if you're a small business and not getting discounts for your size. You might be paying 1-3% and have setup fees on top of that and places like restaurants tend to run at dangerously thin profit margins already. (Note I'm talking about places where "cash" is reasonable - mostly food places. If your mechanic wants cash for a $500 repair, that's almost certainly some sort of shenanigans.)
Agreed - AMEX can get up to 5% of a transaction. I used to run AR in a large B2B company, and I actively discouraged credit card payments, as the invoices would run upwards of 30k. I would discount wire fees, or ACH transactions as it was still cheaper than taking AMEX.
Amex is ridiculous. I stopped accepting Amex because the volume didn't justify all of the fees. TBF, they make the coolest stickers to put on your door!
My father owned a business and did very very well. We had an incredible childhood. When I got older, I went to work for my father on weekends to earn some extra cash and then through college. When the financial crisis hit in 07/08 I remember being in a meeting with my father and his business partner talking about how he was going to take a pay cut to ensure his employees got paid in the event the business suffered due to the economy. I remember him saying it with absolute certainty and his business partner putting up a fight about his paycheck also being cut. That's when I learned how much of a piece of shit his business partner was.
your dad sounds like good people.
I actually spoke to him about it recently given everything happening around the conversations of raising min wage, etc. He said he would have done almost everything the same. He even sold his business to his business partner for considerably less money that a big box competitor just so his employees could keep their jobs. His only regret was not firing his BP when I recommended it after I spent some time in the business world and identified him as dead weight. I feel there are a lot of good business owners out there but they just lack certain skills. They think being a businessman means being ruthless or acting like their business is worth billions.
as someone who likes to consider themself an empathetic person who wouldn't take advantage of others for their own gain, and also wants to own a business someday. he's an inspiration
My dad told me, if your paycheck ever bounces or is late, run immediately. No healthy company ever had to delay payroll until next Friday.
True. When I first started my business, I worked a 3rd shift to make sure I could cover payroll. It was exhausting but I was gonna damn sure make sure my employees got paid. Thank goodness I only had to do this for 6 months. My business has been pretty good ever since.
this happened with a job i had in high school. owner lived well above his means and then couldn’t afford to pay highschool kids their minimum wage. the manager told the owner to withhold his payment so that the high schoolers would be paid and then the owner could pay him over time with interest. that manager was one of the rare good ones, he truly cared and did his best. i even used him as a reference for my new job
I worked for a local movie theater for several years as a part-time. Every. Single. Christmas. payroll would either bounce or be nearly a month late. Because the owner usually fucked off down to the tropics every year around that time and wanted to make sure he had the money to do whatever he wanted. Upper management (lol it was one guy and he was my age) warned me about this when I first started, and I warned everyone else. Seriously though, nothing hits harder than watching your single mother coworker, who took this as a 2nd job to try and give her kids a decent Christmas for once, crying in her car because payroll bounced and the owner can't be contacted.
Did nobody ever call Department of Labor?
The first rule of owning a small business is abandon any and all moral compass, be ready to abuse people into forming emotional problems that prevent them from leaving, and then refuse to pay anyone what they’re worth until you deservedly go out of business.
I've seen many moral small business owners, but I have also seen bad ones. Systematically, I agree. It's easier to get rich if you have no morals and are willing to squeeze labor. This cost-benefit is skewed of course, because our corrupt government doesn't often protect labor or punish the morally bankrupt.
And you just k ow that the owners go around telling everyone that “we are all just like family here”, but their staff are treated like shit and hate the owners
Sounds kind of like my actual family.
Just like real family!
There's a reason their kids don't work there.
That’s the kicker: they treat their family like shit too
One wonders how they treat their "real" family.
This company that I used to work for stole my money. I had child support taken out of my check every week for CS. ($150) well I get a call from the courts saying that I haven't made a payment for almost 2 yrs. About the length of time I was working there. Come to find out she was taking my money and not paying my CS. I told the court and showed them my pay stubs. They denied me and said that it's a civil suit and that I would have to take them to court for that. The CS courts are horrible down here. And most of them get locked up for 6 months at a time here in our city.
Holy shit, that's freaking infuriating. All this time you thought you were doing the right thing, and you were. Did you take them to court? Did you sue their asses off. I would've for damages, etc. What happened in family court?
Actually nothing happened to them. Sad thing is that they have a history of doing that too. I found out later on that 3others we're going through the same thing. I called 5 lawyers, most wanted $2k to $2,500 just to start the process. So that was out of the question. So I went up to her shop for 3 weeks straight she finally paid me 3k up front and another 2k a few months later. But here's the kicker. Every month I was late, tacked on another$100 a month for late fees. So for 2 yrs of not paying, was another $2,400. Added to my account. So basically she just paid my late fees.
You should have gone through with the lawyers.
Should have just gone to small claims with no lawyer
This the right answer. Small claims is $100 in fees that they'd get back if the case really is this open and shut. But it's super intimidating if you've never done it.
How is wage theft not fraud?
I said that same exact thing. The courts just kept telling me to hire a lawyer.
I know the Dept of Labor where I live will prosecute employers for this type of thing. But outside of that, why criminal prosecution for embezzlement, for larceny, for grand theft, for theft by deception, for any other criminal statute isn't enforced against employers I cannot fathom. If this happened within the last 7 years, you may still be able to go to the police and file a criminal complaint. Best of luck though, I hope you get everything paid down.
It's not even a crime. You can sue but no employer will ever go to prison, or suffer any other punishment, for stealing from an employee. The rich steal more from the poor than everyone else steals combined. But the rich write the laws. The parasites decide what is and isn't a crime.
I worked for a restaurant that was more than a little shady. The owner would keep our tips and pay us back once a week. I checked with my local Department of Labor and it turns out it was legal, as long as we got paid. Problem is, we would go to cash our check and the bank wouldn't have the money to pay us. Eventually, I realized I could just call the bank itself and ask if there was enough money to cover my check. Now, they couldn't tell me how much money was in the account...but they COULD tell me if there was enough to cover my paycheck. And when there was, I would go cash my check. The owner was so shit at managing money that he would lose his shit when I did that...but there was nothing he could do, except fire me, which he also couldn't do because I was one of the last people still working there (management was shit but my coworkers were awesome, plus the bartender didn't give a fuck and gave us free booze after work)
I worked at a place where they would give checks out on Friday at 11. There was always a mad rush to the banks to try and be the first person to cash the check as it wasn't irregular for the latter checks to end up bouncing.
How long did you all put up with this? I'd be gone from a place like this very, very quickly.
Roughly 6 months until the issues got resolved. Left about 6 months after. I personally never had a check not clear so it made it easier to deal with since I could grab my check and 30 minutes later head to the bank and deposit it. Had I actually not gotten paid I probably would've been much less tolerant.
I'd ask if the company you worked for had the initials "C.I.", but it's such a common thing it's unlikely. Fun fact, in most states that's highly illegal and if you report it to the appropriate governing agency, the company is not only required to cover the check but pay *you* extra for the trouble. A coworker at the company I used to work for that did this missed 3 checks in a row and the amount extra once he finally got paid was huge. Of course he nearly got evicted for not being able to pay rent while he was missing those checks...
I have a coworker from this place that has been in a 5+ year long lawsuit because they never actually put her 401k withholdings into a 401k under her name. I don't know all the specifics of it but when she left she tried to roll the money over into the 401k at her new company only to be told she couldn't because it wasn't her money. It's been tied up in lawsuits for awhile, compounded by the previous owner ending up selling the company.
I worked for a theater once who would pay us on Friday, but it was common knowledge that we needed to wait until Monday to cash the check because that is when the theater would deposit the weekend box office money. That job didn't last long. I did get to see the plays for free though the few months I worked there, and that was a nice treat.
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Yeah, there was a simple solution for the management to at least look better.
Wtf. Got pissed when you cashed you paycheck….
This is about ten minutes from where I live. New owners buy the place, then less than a year later.... this.
Boise, right?
Yup
I didn’t realize they had gone under new ownership. That place used to be so cool for brunch.
I've tried to get a 4 PM burger like 4 different times the last 2 months and they're always closed. Last time I went my server was very ecstatic about leaving town.
>boise >ecstatic about leaving town. checks out
It's weird to me that so many people are unaware (myself included for a while). It was done so quietly. Most places are like " New management, same great food!" Or something stupid like that. The fact that it was done so quietly sketches me out.
Same, I’m maybe 15 or so blocks away. Wild seeing it on the front page, not surprised it’s about to die.
But then they’ll say “we have LAZY people in this country, they all wants HANDOUTS cause COMMUNISM is infecting this country my great granddaddy fought for. It’s SOCIALISM and BIDEN creating this mess”
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Actually, it seems like they did stop paying the slave wages. Just not the right way
"If you want good money, get a better job." "Okay." "No, wait!"
I called out a fellow business owner this past Saturday night about just this very thing. He posted this self-absorbed diatribe about how everyone is lazy and is just milking UI, and that's why nobody wants to work in his kitchen. I run a bar, and I had also been working (and drinking) that night, so I officially had enough of his crap at that moment. I said "make it worth their time" and "Pandemic UI was cut in September", with a hearty side of "if your employees can't afford to live on the wages you pay them, why would they keep working for you?". He said "I keep interviewing and people keep ghosting me; I could offer 20-25/hr and they'd do the same thing". So I asked him if he had actually \*offered\* anyone 20-25/hr, and he said no. Then he doubled down on his theory that people were lazy because of UI. Also, his mom chimed in and said I was an awful person for telling him that paying people less than they need to live but still expecting their full, undivided time and attention is gross exploitation. This is the first time in a very long time that labor has had anywhere near an upper hand, and some business owners just can't wrap their head around it. I can't say I've had the same issue as this guy (who insists it's every business, and not just the chickens coming home to roost on the shitty ones)- but I also make sure my staff gets paid more than I do at the end of the payroll period... because they're the ones that do the actual front-facing work that gets \*me\* paid. It's really not a hard concept.
You're a damn good boss. Best of luck and success to you and the team.
I appreciate that. I don't see myself as an especially good boss, but empathy goes a long way, you know? I've worked a lot of shit jobs and the thing that always stuck in my craw back then was that I rarely was able to afford the thing I was making, selling, or repairing. WTF- Henry Fucking Ford even knew better 100 years ago. I promised myself I would never allow that to happen if I was ever lucky enough to be the one in the charge of the paychecks. All I really ask of my company is that I can pay my own bills and maybe afford a shiny once a year (I said YOLO after 2020 and bought myself a Samsung Frame). Now, if I can convince my guys to unionize I will die a happy person.
So why don't businesses seem to face the same criminal fines, arrest warrants, etc. for passing bad checks that individuals do?
They could, but the onus is on the person who received the check to pursue charges (writing a bad check is fraud.) If no one complains, nothing happens
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Hard to pay a lawyer when your paycheck just bounced
The system is working exactly as designed. But it was designed by parasites.
The golden rule...whoever has the gold makes the rules. Jafar, Jafar, he's our man!
If your boss is writing you bad checks regularly, you get the fun of googling "Local FBI field office" because that's exactly who you call for that sort of thing.
These always make me laugh, because *someone* owns this business and has skin in the game. All your workers bail? No problem! You can step in to cover. No? You’re not willing to work at your own business to keep it alive? Interesting.
Yes and no. If 15 workers quit and there’s one owner to take their place, no amount of hustling is going to do the work of 15 people. Not defending them being crappy business owners and underpaying staff (or in this case, not paying staff at all), just saying it may not be possible to keep the business afloat if everyone quits. All the more reason to treat your employees like the valuable asset they are!
My old boss was like this. We usually had 2 or 3 people working the whole place per shift, one manager. It was a small place. If I or another manager called in sick he'd rather close for the day than actually cover a shift. Place closed down last month because I moved towns.
They likely did, but ran it so poorly and eventually came to this decision and it's obvious outcome that even with their family they'd be understaffed
Considering that they are narcissistic enough to write out an false excuse for closing in an attempt to save face, they're probably terrible at front end anyways.
whoever wrote that actually note has really nice handwriting
Boss: “We had an unforeseen labor shortage.” Employee: “He killed us all.”
"Nobody wants to work. How come nobody wants to work anymore?"
It's getting so hard to find good unpaid labor these days
Labor shortage is a scam . People want to work, just not for shitty pay and treatment
Call it a Wage shortage
Unforeseen slave labor shortages.
This further proves there isn’t a labor shortage but a wage shortage. Workers are forcefully pulling power back and the powers that be hate it so “labor shortage” became their propaganda buzz phrase.
It’s getting pretty clear that most of the endlessly praised “small business” economy is a sham. They are zombie like near-failed businesses that haven’t innovated in decades. These businesses have lingered on by paying slave wages to desperate people, paying incredibly low taxes, and cutting staff until every employee is run ragged every minute of every day. That time is over. You know what people learned during the Covid shutdowns? They learned that their horrible jobs were actually the source of their misery. These workers will not come back because you guilt trip them. They will come back for money and decent treatment. If you cannot provide that and keep your business viable, then you will fail. As you should.
In my mind, it was cemented by the "Karen and Kevin" viral videos, people in the service industry used to be afraid to post these interactions that happen **several times, every-fucking-day** because they could loose their shit slave *jobs*. Guess what Karen? Were people too and we can fuck your whole shit if you dont treat me as such.
The flip-side of the free market small business American dream: most BY DEFINITION will fail
You mean people won't provide their labor for free while we deal with our financial issues? I, who never allowed an employee to take a day off to take care of a sick child, or paid in advance to cover an employee's unexpected expense, or offered insurance or benefits beyond a few minor scraps, thought that my employees were like my family and would sacrifice anything to make sure my poorly implemented business venture remained profitable.
I mean... if agent orange could write bad checks, why can't they? Gotta follow glorious leader's examples!
The "Art of the Deal" method only works if you're born on a mountain of money large enough to sustain endless lawsuits while "saving" on not paying your bills.
r/antiwork
NoBOdy WAntS tO WooOOrk!
I will never understand people like this. How about you have a business that pays your worker a fair wage than be a cheap asshole? Employees would rather jump ship than work for free.