Employer has withheld all my wages!

canonman

Hi all,

Hoping someone can advise me on my current situation.

I have recently left my last employer, i was not dismissed, sacked or pushed out i simply found another job better pay etc...and left on good terms and have a recommendation and was offered my job back if my new employment did not work out

Tomorrow should be my last payment from my previous employer, my payslips are sent via email and received my payslip about 4pm. I opened my payslip and checked everything all normal deductions tax etc.. are the but then i noticed my net pay is £0.00 upon further inspection there is IT ADJ which lists my entire wage as a deduction.

My employer gave out tablets as we needed to use some software. However this was sent back in the assigned envelope when i gave my notice in and i have a copy of the tracking post office receipt.

I call the payroll department and speak to a Gary, who does inform me that i have a price of outstanding equipment. i explain i have tracking proof etc... he asks for my number and he explains he will need to speak to the IT Department and will call me back. 6pm comes and no call, i call the office and its shut.

As of tomorrow like every had working individual i have payments to make and are due tomorrow.

What i don't understand is:

1) for arguments sake lets say there was a tablet pc outstanding and market value suggest this tablet is with £300 would they not deduct that rather than my entire wage to the penny?

2) My company job was transferred to this company last year under TUPE and in my handbook it mentions deductions can be made for loss, theft misuse of equipment or company cars, its rather vague and does not stipulate there working out for such instance.

3) No contact was made to me, just a pre-paid royal mail special delivery bag for me to send equipment back.


I feel sick to the back teeth that they could do this to me, it just seems criminal at this stage. I won't be able to speak until tomorrow even then it could be a battle. The company i work for has large contracts for well known tech giants so its not a small company and could be an error.


UPDATE

They are now saying they are missing a tablet PC, the one i sent back they have, they are saying that there is another tablet which they state they are missing,

• Join Company
• tablet 1 is issued
• use for 1 year, gets fault
• Ring IT new tablet is sent out
• Tablet 1 is sent back
• Tablet 2 arrives 1 month later.

Tablet 2 they have back, tablet 1 they state they are missing. They are asking me to get proof of postage which would be fine if i had but it was months ago so i have no hope.

So everyone is clear my wages should have been after tax £1030, they have paid me only £635 and they value this tablet at £400, checking eBay used prices its valued at £200

As it stands is what they are doing legal?

I want to know pursue this to the full for damages and stress.

vegasvisitor

I would question whether they would have issued a second piece of equipment without the return of the first?

canonman

lesley74 wrote: »

I would question whether they would have issued a second piece of equipment without the return of the first?

I have spoke to ASAS and being as they are independent there advice was to compose a letter, with my issues such as are they legally allowed to deduct any amount they feel etc...

I raised the issue of you sent me the replacement.... the HR team shurugged the issue of to IT. Asking them any logical answers always results in a "call back"

I am hoping some help with a well written letter with small claims would sort them out.

If they had an issue why did they not raise it with me before payment due date?

:think:

sangie595

It would appear that, from what you say, your conditions of service include loss of equipment. You have no proof that you returned the item. So, on the face of it, you still have the item and they have a contractual term that allows them to make a deduction for said item.

What you might be able to purchase an item for on eBay is irrelevant. Provided that the cost they estimate is reasonable, then it is acceptable, and I can see no reason why £400 is not reasonable. Just because you might be willing to take a risk of a £200 piece of equipment bought from an unknown source on eBay does not mean that they have to.

You have no recourse to "pursue this to the full for damages and stress". There are no grounds for damages claims and no grounds for stress claims. And by that, I mean there is no legal basis to make such claims - they do not exist. You may possibly dispute the amount of the deduction, but there is nothing here to suggest that the deduction in unlawful, and so you may very well lose - and end up paying their legal costs. That risk may be worth it for you. But that is something you have to decide. You should be clear though - based on what you have said here, you do owe them something, and the only possible dispute is the amount of the "something". At this point in time they have evidence they gave you a tablet (or two of them) and that you only returned one; and you have no evidence that you returned two.

paddyrg

I'd stick by your argument of why would you want to keep a broken tablet, and if course you sent it back, hence them sending a replacement. It's the most compelling.

Leo2020

It doesn't make sense that you have two. My husband works in IT and a fault would be confirmed before issuing a replacement. Their IT department is pretty slack if the just send out new equipment and then don't check that they had the old one back. I wonder if you could ask for the IT department to check their records again? It may well have been shoved on a shelf somewhere.

sangie595

Leo2020 wrote: »

It doesn't make sense that you have two. My husband works in IT and a fault would be confirmed before issuing a replacement. Their IT department is pretty slack if the just send out new equipment and then don't check that they had the old one back. I wonder if you could ask for the IT department to check their records again? It may well have been shoved on a shelf somewhere.

This is certainly worth a try, but even so, what doesn't make sense to you or your husband doesn't make a case. Employers (and, in my experience, IT departments) can be lacksadaisical. Unfortunately, in this case, it is the OP who doesn't have the evidence. The employer doesn't need to "get the last tablet back" before issuing a new one - resulting in disruption which would be inconvenient for many employers - because if things are not returned, they have that clause in their contract to recover the cost. You could equally argue that it is remiss of the OP to post something back and then lose / dispose of the receipt for postage before confirming it has been received.

BTW - our IT department always send out new equipment before getting the old one back. That is not "slack". We have a service which is routinely delivered remotely and from many different locations; where people need access to files, servers and communications at the drop of a hat; and where being connected is now business critical. Where an item of equipment fails to function, it would be service suicide to wait two, three or more days before getting someone back on line with a tablet. It would therefore be our practice to send out a replacement immediately and ask the employee to return the old one - and as employees we would expect to keep the receipt for that return until we knew it had arrived! We have exactly the same clause in our contracts - what we don't return, we pay for. So we are quite sure that things are returned or that we have proof they have been.

sangie595

paddyrg wrote: »

I'd stick by your argument of why would you want to keep a broken tablet, and if course you sent it back, hence them sending a replacement. It's the most compelling.

^^^this^^^^

You really don't have any other argument, since you have no evidence to support you.

TrickyDicky101

I would add (and it may well not be the case everywhere) but my company would send the replacement without necessarily receipting the first piece of equipment.

Undervalued

canonman wrote: »

Hi all,

Hoping someone can advise me on my current situation.

I have recently left my last employer, i was not dismissed, sacked or pushed out i simply found another job better pay etc...and left on good terms and have a recommendation and was offered my job back if my new employment did not work out

Tomorrow should be my last payment from my previous employer, my payslips are sent via email and received my payslip about 4pm. I opened my payslip and checked everything all normal deductions tax etc.. are the but then i noticed my net pay is £0.00 upon further inspection there is IT ADJ which lists my entire wage as a deduction.

My employer gave out tablets as we needed to use some software. However this was sent back in the assigned envelope when i gave my notice in and i have a copy of the tracking post office receipt.

I call the payroll department and speak to a Gary, who does inform me that i have a price of outstanding equipment. i explain i have tracking proof etc... he asks for my number and he explains he will need to speak to the IT Department and will call me back. 6pm comes and no call, i call the office and its shut.

As of tomorrow like every had working individual i have payments to make and are due tomorrow.

What i don't understand is:

1) for arguments sake lets say there was a tablet pc outstanding and market value suggest this tablet is with £300 would they not deduct that rather than my entire wage to the penny?

2) My company job was transferred to this company last year under TUPE and in my handbook it mentions deductions can be made for loss, theft misuse of equipment or company cars, its rather vague and does not stipulate there working out for such instance.

3) No contact was made to me, just a pre-paid royal mail special delivery bag for me to send equipment back.


I feel sick to the back teeth that they could do this to me, it just seems criminal at this stage. I won't be able to speak until tomorrow even then it could be a battle. The company i work for has large contracts for well known tech giants so its not a small company and could be an error.


UPDATE

They are now saying they are missing a tablet PC, the one i sent back they have, they are saying that there is another tablet which they state they are missing,

• Join Company
• tablet 1 is issued
• use for 1 year, gets fault
• Ring IT new tablet is sent out
• Tablet 1 is sent back
• Tablet 2 arrives 1 month later.

Tablet 2 they have back, tablet 1 they state they are missing. They are asking me to get proof of postage which would be fine if i had but it was months ago so i have no hope.

So everyone is clear my wages should have been after tax £1030, they have paid me only £635 and they value this tablet at £400, checking eBay used prices its valued at £200

As it stands is what they are doing legal?

I want to know pursue this to the full for damages and stress.

Assuming for the moment that you had lost the tablet and therefore owed them for a replacement......

Why should they be expected to shop around and buy a secondhand item from an unknown source to put them back in the position they would have been in had you not lost it?

Take that a stage further, if they only had to replay the lowest second hand value many people might choose to "lose" their work equipment so that they could acquire a item with known history very cheaply.

Years ago this was a well known perk / scam with retiring staff from some national bodies. Some staff were issued with a personal tool kit for which they were responsible. If items wore out or broke they handed the item in and it was replaced with a new one. If they lost it they had to pay a depreciated value bureaucratically calculated down from its original value. So, lots of tool mysteriously wore out or broke during the last year or two before retirement. On retirement, nobody could find any of their tool kit so an invoice was raised for a depreciated value based on what the items cost, sometimes up to forty years ago! The tax payer paid 95% of the current cost of replacing them!

Voyager2002

One thing is not clear: did you receive your final salary less a deduction of 400, or did you receive nothing?

From what has been posted above, 400 would probably have been an acceptable amount to deduct if you had hung on to the tablet. Your focus therefore should be on documenting that you did return it.