My Husband's Employer Is Lying About His Paycheck (What do we do?)

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. My husband had a job offer for $62,000 a year salary. And then as he had started the position and he's, you know, talking to people with like HR and payroll, he's being told that, you know, of course he wouldn't get paid overtime, but he still has to clock in, clock out. And if he doesn't make 40 hours, he's being docked somehow, which sounds hourly and fraudulent. Okay. So you're, are you going to get clarity or are you simply not going to take the offer? Oh, he already accepted the $62,000 salary offer, but we got our first paycheck and they're not allowing us access to his pay stub. And based off of the number we received, it would seem that he's being paid something entirely different than what was agreed to. What does it look like he's, what does it look like he's being paid? Hourly, which we don't even know what the price is hourly. But what's being paid? What's the pay stub? What's the pay stub amount? And how far off is it? What do you mean? How do you not allow somebody to see that? Well, it's supposed to be on the app, um, which he has access to the app, but like when he goes to the tab, it essentially says that his employer has him blocked. So can he, did he go down to HR and say, Hey, I'm blocked on this. Uh, can you fix it? And did they say no, or has he just not done that? He's paying in taxes and FICA and all that stuff. Exactly. Um, and the way that they're conducting business is they tend to just be like, um, Oh, well we'll get to it. We'll, we'll see. We'll talk to you later. Um, okay. So let's back all the way out here for a second. Cause you're, you're ready to go to war here. Okay. A little bit. Yeah. Cause I just, I, I don't understand what's happening. Neither does he. And they're not answering any questions. Okay. So sometimes people get offered positions. Um, I'm trying to think of like, uh, if you went and got a job as a state trooper, right. It would say something like can make up to $110,000 base salary, 60,000 or something like that. Um, but that number is a clock in number. It does have an hourly wage to it. And at some point in the HR process, they'll tell you that. Or I have other buddies who work in industries where part of the management practice is to track hours, but they're paid a salary. And so I've never heard of somebody being paid a salary, but if you work 39 and a half hours, we're going to take money away from you. That's what it is. That's where I am having an issue with is that they're saying, if you don't meet the 40 hours, your pay gets docked. But are they guaranteeing him the 40 hours? Sorry. Are they guaranteeing him the 40 hours? You know, those free samples at the store that are up for grabs for anyone? Well, that's basically what's happening with your personal information. Online data broker sites, collect stuff like your address, phone number, email, even your family's information, and just post it online for anyone to grab. And that's why I use delete me. They remove your personal info from hundreds of data broker websites and keep it gone. So stop letting random websites treat your data like it's free samples. Get 20% off your annual plan at join delete me dot com slash Ramsey. Are they guaranteeing him the 40 hours? And so is it a situation to where we're guaranteeing you the 40 hours? But if you step in and say, yeah, I got to go to a dentist appointment or something that you're not basically clocked in for those hours, then they're docked. Is that exactly what you're saying? Right. So like say he because he is in construction. So it's very like based on the weather. And so say if he's late or if he's done with the job early, it'll be that 40 hours. Like if he's done with the job early, he's not getting however much. He would have to use like paid time off to account for him leaving a job early because the job is done. And that doesn't make sense. I see what you're saying. But how much of this I'm a little perturbed is that I mean, if you're not making your 40 hours and you're docking my pay by how much what's the hourly there. And also, if you're telling me that in the opposite side of the coin, if I work 60 hours, you're not going to pay me 20 hours of overtime. Two things here. One, is there a chance that your husband didn't ask what the hourly rate is when he took this job? Well, I'm actually looking at the job offer paperwork now, and it says you will be paid an annual salary of $67,000 per year and paid in accordance with our every other week schedule. That's verbatim what it says. In all of the paperwork, it says nothing about hourly. Let's do two things. Number one, just focus on what you can control. You can do one of two things right now. You can call a lawyer and you can write a demand letter. That's number one. Number two, you can suffer through this crappy deal and he can immediately start applying for other jobs, not because it's hourly or whatever, but because I'm not going to work for somebody who doesn't have integrity. Integrity is, I don't know if you're taking out taxes for me and I don't want to get hit with a tax bill at the end of the year also. I don't know if you're pulling out social security for me and I don't want to get hit with that bill at the end of the year. That's just business 101. Is he 1099 or is he a W-2? He doesn't even know. Every time he's asking any kind of question- Okay, but hold on. I'm going to put this on him. This should have been determined long before a contract was signed, ma'am. I got to know what I'm signing up for. I got an offer letter. I want to say, get it right and you got that. He's entitled to that amount of money legally because they signed a contract with him. Number two, I'm going to ask bigger questions because I would need to know, am I going to take 67,000? Do I need to pull 30% of that because I'm 1099? I got to pay my own taxes. Is that going to come out of this? Those are questions that should have been asked during the interview and they weren't. Right. I mean, I will say we were very much in need of money. Obviously, you can't live on unemployment. It's unreliable. You don't get it every week. But let's just control what we can control here, right? Yeah. I definitely think we'll probably be looking for somewhere else. They don't seem to be managing much of anything very well. Right on. And can I tell you this? I'm uncomfortable with the whole thing here and here's why. Why are you calling? Why isn't he calling? Why are you reading his contracts? Why isn't he taking control of his job, his finances, his employer, right? Well, I'm a stay at home mom, so I handle our finances. He goes, he brings in the money, he does the work, and I do the child rearing, the finances household. I mean, I'm not very intelligent per se, but I just have a basic understanding of a salary versus an hourly, and it feels like they're really muddling it. They are. And it just doesn't, it's just, the math isn't mapping. Correct. You're right. Yeah. I mean, if I were in your shoes... He has asked questions. He has tried to talk to the payroll people and he has tried to talk to HR, but again, they just keep saying like, oh, I don't know right now. We'll come back to it. And that's not right. I'm on your side. And if you're asking, is this right or wrong? I don't think it's right the way it's being handled. I think the question to go in is like, hey, am I salary exempt? Tell me what's going on. Answer my questions. If you're not going to my questions and there's no solve here and that's frustrating. I like what John said, which is you've really got the two routes. You can either lawyer up and really try to fight this and get what you thought you were signing on the dotted line for. I don't even know if I'd go that far. I think I'd just start looking for new jobs because the benefit of him having this job right now is at least he's searching from a perspective of I have something, I have a gig, so I'm not desperate. And that's going to help him have more opportunity to find what it is that he's really looking for. So there is like a silver lining to this cloud. But my biggest thing going forward is I think you you both have learned the lesson of we have to ask our questions early and make sure we're getting very clear answers, making sure things are documented in writing. And I have a feeling I don't know, Leah, but you can when you're in the interview process, you can start to sense what people's character is like. Are they wishy washy? Are they putting you off? You know, that sort of thing. And I think that you're going to you can chalk that up to experience at this point and going forward. And I need a job right now. I'm gonna take what I can get. I support that. Yeah, for sure. But if your boss isn't a person of character, I'm gonna get out of there. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.