Were you quoting me for a reason? The whole point of my post was that there is another set of laws unrelated to direct deposit that do relate to what the employer did, and that the OP should know the facts of his situation.
Accusing me of accusing someone of wire fraud seems completely random.
Mississippi, a state that is generally pretty hostile toward the employee.
-Joe
You are correct, sorry about that. What I intended to do, and obviously failed at, was use your information as evidence that the earlier post about wire fraud was premature. I didn’t clearly make that link.
I think you were mixing up Harriet and Kimmy.
-Joe
I don’t see that analogy. I see it more like stopping payment on a check which is justified in some cases.
No confusion on my part. Just poor message board skills.
Wrong again, tim-n-va. What you seem to refuse to recognize is that it is one thing to issue a check whose amount shows (Wages - Final Deductions) versus issuing a check whose amount shows (Wages) and then, later, trying to recoup the expense by issuing an unauthorized debit order.
Suppose all this were done with paper checks. Do you think the employer could just call up the bank and say “Joe quit yesterday, send us $1500 from his account for the laptop. KTHXBAI!”? Obviously not.
Your argument, to wit, “we’ll just characterize this as a correction,” just isn’t true. It is not a scrivener’s error, it’s not transposed digits. It is an after-issue attempt to collect on this claim through means that the employer is not entitled to use.
Finally, and this is only a technical point, since the above already settles the issue, under Washington State Law, the employer is only licensed to make these deductions from the final paycheck. Since the employer here pays at the end of the pay period, there is still a check for two day’s work due. The employer may, before direct deposit, deduct the lesser of (i) the assessed charges for the laptop or (ii) the statutory maximum at that time.
You know, somebody who uses the phrase “butt-hurt” (think about it) forfeits the right to get too upset over the use of “girl” for “woman.” The use of “boy” or “girl” for an adult can be either insulting, patronizing, informal, or, in cases of a large age difference, near-neutral or even affectionate. You’ve made your point, and for what it’s worth you’re right in principle, but let it go now.
That was really sneaking of your employer.
It varies from state to state, but like in Illinois, your wages MUST be paid in full. Any deductions and such must be then paid by the employee to the employer who can sue them for damages.
Even if it involves theft. I worked in payroll in a hotel and we had one guy with a $200.00 bank. He quit and took his $200 bank then the next day called in and said he quit and would mail back the key to the box, where his bank was kept.
I got the key and went to verify the box and it was empty. Then the GM told me not to send out his last paycheck, then he went to the state and demanded his last paycheck and of course we had to pay him.
In Illinois even for theft, you can’t withhold wages. As the lady from “wages and hours” explained to me, “this is why you bond your employees.” She said I’d have to call the cops and file a theft report and sue him to recover it.
So I sent a letter and filed a theft report. We didn’t sue him though.
There is a process in Illinois to set up a system where the employee “gives” you an amount equal to his bank or his laptop for example. Then you, as the employer have to put it in a seperate account (that bears interest) in his name and the hotel’s name. Interest is to be paid out each year and upon termination you and the employee must agree to settle the deposit.
As for banks, I didn’t like the idea of online banking at first, but now even when you send a check to a company, they don’t cash the check, they do it all electronically. Like AT&T tears up your check and submits it electronically.
The only way you can do it is to send a money order, which if it gets lost, is very difficult to get your money back, even a postal money order. I’m going through a mess with Citibank, for over a year.
I recall a long time ago in the early 80s, I lost a check and the lady said “Well we could put a stop payment on it, but it’s better to close the account, that way if it accidently gets paid out, there’s no money in the account.”
I was shocked, when I had my own business, I had checks go bad on me, six months after they cleared. So even if your check clears it’s no guarantee.
I’m not refusing to recognize anything. I’m just asking questions in an internet discussion isolating aspects of the original question to try to figure out how much of this is specific to the one case and how much can be generalized. That is why I asked if a company could make an adjustment to a direct deposit. Is there a difference between correcting a direct deposit and issuing stop payment on a check in terms of when you can do it? Do written agreements between the employee and the employer have any impact on the various local laws? The Washington State one mentioned written agreements.
Is this all just another “it depends on your local laws” question?
For that analogy to hold water, the employer would have to have stopped the deposit before it cleared and deposited into employee’s account.
This is like cashing a check. After the check is cashed, no amount of “stop checkery” will make the funds come out of my hand, go back into a check and reverse itself to the check-writer.
Just because you see it that way doesn’t mean the law sees it that way. Once I’ve given you property, it’s yours. If I want it back, there are ways to do that; theft isn’t among them. Indeed, OJ was just convicted for essentially stealing back his stolen property. The proper way to get stuff back is to sue; not to steal it back.
Actually, if your former company’s DD works like my company’s does, you kinda did get an advance payment.
Let me 'splain.
There is processing time involved with DD payroll. Our payroll needs to be to our DD provider two and a half days before pay day. It needs to be to our payroll department two and a half days before that. I would bet that your payroll is submitted to your provider at least a business day before they deposit it into your account. So, in a best case scenario, your pay info is sent in on the 14th at the latest, with your pay for the 15th estimated. (I would be surprised if your DD payroll can be submitted to the provider and then to your bank by the provider on the same day. Plus I bet your payroll went in at 12:00AM on the 15th, obviously before you worked those hours.) Oftentimes at my company, the payperiod goes through the 15th but because of the number of processing days needed, it’s due to the payroll department on the 13th or the 14th. We estimate pay for those two days, and then if employees are paid for hours they didn’t work we adjust that off their next check.
Not that your company could work entirely differently, but the above scenario is the way it’s worked at every company I’ve had DD. I’m also not saying they weren’t slimey in how they handled this.
This is not how my company pays me:
I was paid on the 19th, for the hours I worked on June 1-12.
The hours I worked on the 15th through the 26th, I will receive in the payday of the 3rd.
A full week’s lag time.
I have Direct Deposit. The application form is very short, and does not include any mention of any provision on it for withdrawal/corrections.
I do not understand any of this. Someone can deposit as much money as they want into my account and I do not need to authorise any of it. If I give my employer my bank account details they can deposit all they want but that does not authorise them to withdraw anything. And I sure as hell would not authorise them to make withdrawals. Why would I?
All of my employers handled this by having a delay between the end of the pay period and payday.
Period starts: Monday, Smarch 1
Period ends: Sunday, Smarch 14
Pay day: Wednesday, Smarch 24 (pays for work performed during Smarch 1-14)
Suppose I quit on Thursday, Smarch 25. Then I have a check due on Wednesday, Smarch 38, nearly two weeks later, that will be my final paycheck from my employer.
Yes, ours does, too. But the OP stated he was paid thru the 15th on the 15th, and didn’t get any advance payment. But in reality I bet he did.
So your argument is that you know his pay schedule better than he himself does?
No.
Direct Deposit is a little different than walking into the bank and making a deposit. The whole point of the OP is that the employer made an UNAUTHORIZED WD from the OP’s account. The details we don’t know are what the employer said or did that convinced the bank that this was an OK transaction.
I certainly can’t argue with that. Is stopping payment on a check the same as armed robbery as the law sees it. :rolleyes: