I was laid off last month when I was negative on PTO. Now I received a letter in the mail from repayment saying I owe them about 2k in PTO overusage. I’ve heard from previous employees that they try to scare you to pay it back but don’t have much legal recourse to take me to collections. Every time I call them they just tell me to repay it or I won’t be eligible for rehire. What should I do?
57 replies (most recent on top)
The employee handbook is not a contract. Laws vary by state on if they can clawback/bill you the pto amount
If they are just saying you will not get hired back...I would wait until the letters get more aggressive. I sincerely think that is far as it will go. They cant afford more bad rap for displaced workers.
So this is an issue of character. You know you borrowed / took and now you think you don't owe. If you can sleep at night knowing this, in reality, your biggest issue isn't about $, rather, lack of honest ethics. I'm no fan of how Wells does things at times, but I own my honesty. You do too. It's kind of like putting the shopping cart back when nobody is around or picking up what you knocked over in a store when nobody is looking. If you can live with your own lack of moral character, well....go on ahead. Most of us learned how to be better humans a long long time ago.
The real question is - Did you take pay that was not earned. And the real answer is YES. You owe the money. Whether or not you choose to pay it back is your call but there is no question you took something on a give and take basis for which you did not hold up your end of the deal. Staying employed until all annual PTO is accrued is your part of the deal.
Pay it back
They can bill me all they want and they can kiss my hairy a$$ cause they are getting zip from me after a layoff.
Reach out to Dealbreaker.com. Those guys love to hate on WF.
Hey OP, maybe post your question on a law forum, and not here, where there are no lawyers, at least that you can be sure of, and where the trolls hang out.
Ask a lawyer, not a layoff rumor forum.
Post ID: @1ieh+1bcC2j7a
I don’t feel quite so bad taking from thieves and wrong-doers. The BOD and Charlie are, basically, thieves dressed up in expensive suits.
To the OP: If you genuinely did not intentionally do anything wrong (I don’t think you did):
First - I would give the money back because you won’t win against the greed and arrogance of those running the show at WFC.
Second - I would write about it EVERYWHERE on social media, letters to the editor, start a blog, Review sites, the BBB, Glassdoor, EVERYWHERE. That is, again, only if you think you have been justifiably wronged. I would shine the light on WFC’s incompetence at the most basic of tasks (cutting an accurate final check), their greed in taking back money from recently laid off workers while our CEO is making in the $tens of millions, how much money they are spending on stock buybacks, and I would keep on going. Make sure what you say is the truth, because the truth about WFC is damaging enough.
Put Wells Fargo in the spotlight for their greed and arrogance and incompetence every chance you get.
Just pay the man
WF will get their money whether you give it to them or if they have to take it (via collections). I’d avoid the credit score impact and pay it back.
Actually, you do owe it. Do the right thing.
they steal from the customers, why wouldnt they steal from employees too
@1mqm+1bcC2j7a it could depend on when OP started working at WF. It's illegal for organizations to take money out of your earnings (regardless of the reason, including unreturned equipment) without you giving them permission to do so. In recent years, most companies have employees fill out a payroll deduction authorization at hire in order to remedy this. Older employees would not have necessarily filled out such form. In some states, it is still illegal to take funds out of an employee's pay check.
Its your morals and standards you go to the grave with, you have to decide what is right and wrong and what you think is your moral obligation, no one else.
Something about this story is off. They wouldn’t have burned through their nonworking notice period, much less the severance, and I expect it would have gotten taken out of the final paycheck like every other employer I ever had.
For all ones still employed:
Carry over all five days of PTO each year (sometimes this is difficult i know, but try your hardest).
Every year after that:
- Use your five carryover dates. You must use by mid March so make sure to use them
- Use your two personal holidays next. These do not have accrual schedule so are available Jan 1. They also do not require you to pay them back. Use these before any non-carryover PTO.
- Use any floating holidays that you are able to schedule whenever. Some business lines govern this differently so circumstances may vary in how you can use these.
- After the above options are exhausted, then use your allocated PTO.
These steps should keep you from falling into a similar pit as the OP.
Good luck all.
Repay it. you've got to separate your "they owe me for laying me off" emotions from the pure cold facts: it will come back to haunt you later. You may not care if you're not eligible for rehire at WF, but when another employer does verification of your employment with WF you do not want to be in the "not eligible for rehire" bucket . They won't tell an employer why, but just finding that out that will be enough - they'll move on.
Of course if you have different life plans that don't include working for a corporate employer again - then this won't matter
Always carry over five days and use those during the first three months. Then use the two personal holidays, these are earned immediately on Jan 1 and are not available for payout if you leave like pto. After those are depleted, then use your pto.
surprising they didn't take it out of your final paycheck. As to whether the manager holds responsibility for helping employee manage pto I would say it isn't. If your work is covered take all the time off allowed. The whole negative balance things is a known risk
Another example of all the failed systems at this company. Any other company can keep track of their payroll. The fact that they didn't get it right in a layoff THEY planned is even more disgraceful.
OP you should, unfortunately, pay it back. Not worth the 'not eligible for rehire' reference response.
For those calling the OP a deadbeat, it's early in the year. Depending on tenure, very little may have accrued per pay period so a few days off could easily put you at a negative balance. It's on the manager to approve PTO requests in context of managing the risk of negative PTO balances but that's another area this place is abysmal at - managing risk.
just pay it back, you didn't earn the PTO as you used more than you had accrued before you left; that's why they're billing you for it.
Pay it back if you ever want to work again - anywhere.
Yes it sucks that the bank would lay you off and then take food out of your mouth - but that’s Wells Fargo.
Next, they will make you unemployable by telling anybody you apply to that you are ineligible for rehire.
Cut your losses. Pay the money back and find a great new job.
Wow, all the savvy bootlickers have figured out OP's insidious plot to...take PTO using his precognition to know full well he was going to be laid off!
Taking off unaccrued time off is a totally normal practice in companies that portion out PTO like WF, and is easily facilitated by our systems and policies, he wasn't trying to con anyone.
Personally, I would pay it back because yeah, technically it is unearned and I wouldn't want to deal with any collection nonsense. But if the only downside truly is being ineligible for rehire, who cares? Do you really want to work somewhere that would lay you off then send you a bill? Do you really think WF will even be around in its current form years down the road, or that they're remotely competent enough to keep track of that kind of stuff? It's like paying your parking ticket as you're escaping North Korea.
Prediction: OP will keep the money. Case closed
If you have to ask you already don’t want to return
My manager does not approve my request for PTO. It is automatically approved and I have never taken days off that I didn’t earn. None of my team members have done that either. Frankly I don’t have a good feeling about OP especially he/she is trying to keep the money. Those who encouraged OP to keep it shouldn’t criticize anyone about being unethical.
To me, it is yet one more example of what a hot mess Wells Fargo is. WFC should have a procedure in place to make sure final checks are correct. This is a daily and normal event for any corporate entity (employees leaving employment for x number of reasons). Wells has been in business for over 100 years, and we still haven’t figured out how to issue a correct final check? Ridiculous.
Most people have the opposite problem not taking vacation due to Covid. OP must be a dead weight deliberately took more days off than he had hoping he would get away with it if he got laid off. No innocent victim here
Just pay it back so you can leave with a clean slate. Even if it states on the employee handbook that you are required to pay it back, there are gray areas given you did not foresee that you will be laid off. You will not be hired back regardless for over-use of PTO to begin with. WF should have just let you take your vacation unpaid to begin with and this mess would have been avoided. They screwed up this one.
manager should have to pay it back for allowing them to go into the negative; managers need to start doing their jobs; managers in tech are id--ts, he prob work in that department
The handbook does mention having to pay it back, and that if you use it all up before year end, then need more because you got sick, it might be a termination reason. You can’t borrow from next year’s PTO. For that reason, I have always taken the last week of the year as PTO. I save those days in case I get sick, then have to take them at year end so they are all used up. My area does not like carry over PTO. The hard part is others all do the same, so last week of year, nobody is working.
I worked at a company once where they don’t let you use unearned time. It was difficult, everyone waiting to earn their days first. No one takes vacation until April or later, as they have to earn it first. If you are planning a 2 week vacation, then no days off till summer or so. This leads to everyone using days in latter half of the year, rather than spread evenly over the year. The later it got in the year, the more people on leave. Planning work was harder, and parents needed time for Spring Break when the kids were out of school. Both employees and managers disliked this system.
So they converted over to allowing you to use unearned time as it was best for everyone.
Layoffs are not announced in advance, so it is quite possible that someone used some unearned time then gets laid off. They can deduct it from the final paycheck or maybe severance. But there should also be a limit on it. Because having vacations evenly spread out over the year is better for the company, rather than having everyone wait and try to take it at the same time.
If the OP had taken a longer vacation, then got hit with a layoff, I think WF should just drop it. If they were fired for cause, maybe send a bill, but not for an unforeseen event like a layoff. Or maybe put a limit on how much unearned PTO can be billed at layoff time, like say 40 hours. I don’t think it a good idea to have everyone go back to not taking PTO and end up with so much absence in last quarter.
Hate to be the one to say this, but @OP didn't read the handbook thoroughly when they got hired. If they had, this wouldn't be a surprise.
This seems ridiculous for them to ask for repayment of PTO. You were laid off which means you had no way of knowing your employment would be terminated when you used unearned PTO. As an employee, you were eligible to use unearned PTO because you would have earned the PTO if you had been able to continue your employment. You were laid off abruptly through no fault of your own. They should not be asking for any type of refund from you. Personally, it seems that Wells is being unethical in this situation, IMO.
It's awesome how many people here, who frequently invest time telling strangers how unethical their manager or coworkers or executives are, when their opportunity arrives to do the right thing they gleefully elect to be unethical themselves.
You got paid for time you didn't work, and you did it a lot if you owe that much. Of course you should pay it back, and no, the unethical behavior of others is never a legitimate justification for your own unethical behavior. So it really doesn't matter what some executive did/didn't do.
Also, it's all fun and games until they inform anyone checking references that you aren't eligible for rehire. No, they won't tell them why. No specifics will be provided, and that makes it am even more damning indictment. People will assume the worst.
The problem with not being eligible for rehire isn’t that you can never again work at WF. It’s that WF can tell any future employer who asks for a reference that you are not eligible for rehire. And they will. Not a good look.
Return the money. If you don’t it will cost you a helluva lot more than a couple thousand dollars.
If you are still getting severance watch out. There may be some stipulation that they can halt all future severance payments.
@1qng - unethical? Who told you that? Dr Phil?
It is unethical for them to lay you off and demand payment for the PTO overage. To start, the PTO should not have been approved or else have you agree to payback the PTO if your employment terminates. If the latter was specified, then you will need to pay it back. It is an unfair situation considering your PTO is taxed at a higher rate to you yet you have to pay back 100%.
@1rcg+1bcC2j7a. Most posters here don’t have that kind of thinking. They are not that classy. They see green and they go nuts
Only if you think you will return to WF in the future. This happened to someone I know who retired and had no intention of returning. He kept the money. With the payroll 2 weeks in arrears, difficult to understand how this happens.
dead wood soon to be dead beat