Manager Scammed Us Out Of Our Paychecks... So I Called The Labor Board

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Just got to work. I'm going to leave my phone back here to charge. It's dead.

[00:00:03]All right, man. What can I get started for you? I was hoping to get two large number sevens, but do you guys take hundred-dollar bills? Oh, yeah, we do.

[00:00:09]That's all good. Amazing. There you go.

[00:00:11]All right, we'll have that out for you shortly. Hey boss, my shift's about to be up. Do you need me to do anything? Um yeah, I just need you to pay back what you owe and you're good to go for the day. Okay, I'll What do you mean pay back what I owe?

[00:00:22]You accepted a hundred-dollar bill today, did you not? I found it in your register, so you need to give me the change that you gave them to put back in the till. I'm sorry. I'm not quite understanding.

[00:00:31]Did you or did you not read the text that got sent out this morning? Um I didn't. My phone's been in the back the whole day. We're not supposed to be on our phones. It was dead anyway. What was the text? It says that you can't accept 50 or hundred-dollar bills. We cannot take them and if you do take them, then you need to replace the money you gave away to do it. We can't afford to be getting all this change. So, you owe us $45.60.

[00:00:54]That is wild. No, I didn't see the text.

[00:00:56]We don't have any signs posted. I I don't have $45 to give you. That's final. Just take it out of your check.

[00:01:02]You're good to go.

[00:01:05]Let me see my phone.

[00:01:06]A text from the district manager. Do not accept hundreds or fifties or you will pay back the difference.

[00:01:13]I don't really know how to handle this kind of thing.

[00:01:16]I'm going to email corporate, our regional manager, and maybe see if that does anything.

[00:01:22]Email from an employee.

[00:01:26]Hmm.

[00:01:28]I don't have this number saved. Hello?

[00:01:31]Hello, this is your regional manager, David. Um I got your email. Oh, hi. Um I guess I just wanted some clarification.

[00:01:38]I didn't know if they were technically allowed to do that. They're just going to take the money out of my check. I assume they're going to be doing it to other people if someone forgets and accidentally takes a larger bill. Well, have they taken any money from you yet?

[00:01:51]Well, no, because they said they were going to take it out of my check. Right.

[00:01:54]So, right now there's really not much of a problem, right? Because they haven't taken any money from you. I I mean it it it's a problem. They're going to take the money from me. It doesn't matter if we get paid in a week.

[00:02:03]I'm sure they're just scaring you to make sure you don't take big bills, okay? Don't worry about it. If you get paid and you don't have that money, let me know and I'll see if there's something I can do. I I don't really think this conversation solved anything.

[00:02:16]I'm sorry you feel that way. Bye-bye.

[00:02:21]All right.

[00:02:22]Time to Google the Oregon Board of Labor.

[00:02:25]I didn't have time to figure out how to get a hold of them yesterday before they shift.

[00:02:28]I'm going to hope this goes better.

[00:02:30]Hey manager, did you happen to put signs up that say we don't accept 50s or 100s anymore because a lot of people use them here. I just want to make sure that we have this signage up. No, why would I do that? All of the employees are informed.

[00:02:40]Don't accept 50s or 100s or you pay it back. I'm pretty sure you like have to have a sign up that says we don't take them. Are you going to sit here and argue with me or are you going to go take orders? Well, I prefer to go home, but I guess I'm going to go take orders.

[00:02:51]All right, ma'am. That's going to be 63.72 for five meals. Okay, I have this $100 bill for you.

[00:02:57]I am so sorry, but we actually can't accept 100s or 50s right now. Would you have anything else? Why can't you accept a $100 bill for an almost $70 order? To be completely honest with you, I don't know. They just told us we can't accept them.

[00:03:11]Well, honestly, I don't have anything else and I have no money on my card, so just cancel the order. I'm going to go.

[00:03:16]Okay. All right, sir. It's going to be 37.25. All right, here you go. 50. I am so sorry, but we can't accept 50s or 100s right now. Would you have anything else you could use to pay?

[00:03:26]Well, I don't see a damn sign up that says that. No, I don't have anything else. So, this was a waste of both of our times. Melissa, that's the second customer I've seen walk out on you. What are you saying to them? That I can't accept the 50s or the 100s that they have. Like I told you, they come through a lot and they had no other way to pay.

[00:03:43]So, they just left.

[00:03:44]And you couldn't just accept the larger bill and pay back yourself? Take one for the team? You robbing me is not taking one for the team. It makes no sense to me because the drawer is going to be over at the end of the day. No matter if you have 100 or 101s, it's the same amount of money. If you must know, we got banned from going to the bank and getting change because we kept shorting them. So, we can't get change anymore.

[00:04:07]That's why you can't accept large bills and you have to give me your money if you do because we don't have change.

[00:04:11]Can't you just go to a different bank?

[00:04:13]No, they communicate that kind of stuff.

[00:04:15]Um so, yeah. That's the reason for the rule. Will you shut up about it now? Oh, yeah, sure. I'll shut up about it.

[00:04:22]Thank you so much for calling me back.

[00:04:23]This is the Oregon Labor Board, right?

[00:04:25]Uh yeah, I'm a representative of the Labor Board giving you a call back regarding the business you work for.

[00:04:30]Yeah, so to be honest, I have no idea how this works. But, um basically, they're telling us we can't accept 50s or 100s, which I know is okay, but we have to like post something that says we can't. But, if an employee takes a 50 or 100, they're making us pay back the change into the till and then not giving us the bigger bill. So, they're basically making us give them more money. Honestly, sounds pretty textbook scamming. So, we're going to send a representative out to your store. He'll do a quick inspection, ask some employees about the things that have been happening, and then we'll make a call. And And what exactly happens when you make a call? It could be a fine. It could be upper management getting fired.

[00:05:08]It could be a shutdown of a location. It really depends on the severity of what's going on down there. Okay, sounds good.

[00:05:13]Um do you have any clue when that representative will be here so I can maybe be ready? No, it will be a surprise inspection so that you don't get cold feet and tell your manager about what's going on. Okay, well, thank you so much for your help. Of course. I hope we can get this figured out for you soon. Hey manager, I'm here for my shift. Melissa, there's someone in the office telling me they're from the Oregon Board of Labor and they're here for an inspection. That's really weird.

[00:05:36]Have we ever had an inspection from them before? No, but he asked to follow around a crew leader. So, um let's go meet him. Hi there, sir. I'm the crew leader on shift today. Hi there. Just going to be following you around asking some questions. Sounds good. Melissa.

[00:05:51]Yeah, manager. What's up? I'm going to take him out to the floor. Watch what you say in front of him, okay? I know you've been having an attitude, but this is not the time to mess around. Be nice.

[00:05:59]Don't tell him anything.

[00:06:01]Sorry, [clears throat] what? I was just telling her to treat you like a rock star.

[00:06:05]Hm.

[00:06:06]Yeah, let's get on with the inspection.

[00:06:08]So, is there a specific place you wanted to start? Well, I'm just going to need you to verify for me. I didn't see any signs that said you couldn't take hundreds or 50s. Um, do we have that posted anywhere? No, we do not. I've mentioned it to the manager, but she just said that it's whatever. It's whatever. All right. Um, would you mind showing me to the back? Yeah, of course.

[00:06:26]No problem. So, do you feel like there's been any mishandling of things?

[00:06:31]Do you see my manager? I do not see her lurking anywhere, no. Okay. So, she told me that we can't take 50s or 100s because they kept shorting the bank when we were trying to get change. So, now they can't get change from anybody. So, if someone takes a 50 or 100, they want us to pay them in small bills to give them the change back. And then they don't give us the larger bill. They just pocket the rest of that difference.

[00:06:53]What? They just take the extra money from you? And hope that we have fives and ones, yeah. I think that's kind of the idea of it. Huh.

[00:07:01]Do you have any other co-workers I could talk to about this? Yeah, actually the same thing happened to Janine yesterday.

[00:07:06]I can go and introduce you. Okay. Uh, she's right over there? Yeah, that's her. Hey, manager. Melissa, I'm just going to take her to talk for a second.

[00:07:13]All right. See you in a moment. What's up, manager? You're fired. You need to leave right now.

[00:07:18]Excuse me, what? You think I didn't hear what you just told the inspector? You are not going to speak to him again, and I'm going to try to clean this up so we don't get shut down. You need to leave right now.

[00:07:27]I'm not leaving just because you don't want him to be told the truth. You can't fire me over this. Leave right now. I'm not kidding, or I'm going to call the police and get you trespassed.

[00:07:35]Okay. God, I Out the door, now. hell. So I'm about that. I'll be continuing your tour. Where's the employee that I was just talking to?

[00:07:45]I got a call from corporate while you guys were walking around about some really terrible things she did, so I had to let her go, unfortunately, but I'll finish this. Let her go? Okay, we can do this. What do you mean we're not doing this? I'm sorry it can't be the same woman showing you around, but I can finish up. Look, ma'am, it seems as if you're either willfully ignorant or grossly misinformed. If I'm called here, I already know that there's a problem.

[00:08:08]You thinking that you can pull anything over on me is insane. That was a retaliatory action, firing your employee after she was honest to me. I'm pretty sure this place is going to get shut down. Shut down based on what? What are your facts? You don't have any signs posted that you don't accept 50s or 100s. I managed to access your payroll accounts, and you are actually docking people who accept 50s and 100s. Um you're robbing your employees, but other than that, I did hear you fire her and tell her it was because she was honest with me. Which is um illegal, to say the least. So, I'm thinking I got to call my boss, and we need to get stuff shut down here. So, can you tell your employees to stop working, to stop accepting customers? No, I will not be doing that.

[00:08:53]If you don't cease production right now, you are operating illegally. I didn't fire her for being honest with you. No, you know what? I've decided that you can't just fire me for telling the truth. Inspector, she is trying to fire me for being honest with you. Yeah, hi, honey, we're going over that right now.

[00:09:09]I told you to leave. You're a bad person, and I can't in good conscience get let you get away with abusing employees, so I I came back. Fine, then, great. You can help us shut down, because we're getting shut down now.

[00:09:20]That's not my fault, uh but also I'm not I'm not going to help you with that. I'm going to Melissa, do you think you can wait in the office so we can still have a talk?

[00:09:28]Yeah, I can do that. So, what? I'm just supposed to tell everyone that they're out of a job? I do feel bad about people losing work. Feel a little less bad that you've been robbing most of them, so yes, you're going to have to go tell them that it's over.

[00:09:40]We'll see.

[00:09:41]Crew, we need to talk. HEY, WORKERS ONE AND TWO, COME HERE.

[00:09:45]YEAH, MANAGER, what's up? Melissa just got this place shut down. So, both of you are out of a job and I'm being told that you need to leave right now and they don't even know if they're going to pay you for what you've worked this week.

[00:09:56]What the hell? What do you mean shut us down? Lose our jobs? We didn't even do anything. Exactly. They're in the office right now if you want to go say something about it, but I'm going to do some stuff out here. Okay, let's go.

[00:10:07]Yeah, so that's the text where they said we couldn't accept 50s or 100s and then you'll see that they doubled down a couple days later and said you better not accept any, we're definitely taking it out of your check, blah blah blah.

[00:10:17]Um managers out there throwing stuff around. Very bold to send it in a text.

[00:10:22]What? Uh Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Stop it right there, inspector man. Melissa, how could you do this to us? Yeah, we're all losing our jobs and you're not even going to pay us for this week. We are not leaving. Um ladies, rest assured We weren't talking to you, suit boy. Guys, I've been your shift leader for 5 years.

[00:10:42]Do you really think that I'd screw you over? This is about the 100s and the 50s, the money that they're taking out of your checks. They refused to own up to it or do anything about it, so they're getting shut down. And you're definitely going to get paid for the last week. I mean, legally they have to.

[00:10:57]But manager said that you got to shut down because you were mad and that we weren't getting our check. Yeah, she sent us in here to come distract you.

[00:11:04]You guys are going to get paid and I bet that I could find you new jobs. Yeah, um in situations like this, businesses will only get shut down temporarily while we place new management for whoever wasn't acting right. So, it's just like an extended vacation? That sounds kind of nice. Yes, like an extended vacation.

[00:11:21]Now, please move. She's out there throwing condiments everywhere. Oh, oh, sorry. You've got to be kidding me. I mean, she's got the right spirit. All right, enough of this show you're putting on. I don't know what you mean by show. I'm losing my job for no reason because some corporate man is coming in and shutting it down. So, yeah, I'm angry.

[00:11:41]Do you know you're being insane or are you just so delusional that you've like bought into it now? I don't want to talk to you, Melissa. This is all of your fault. Okay, I'm still going to need you to leave. We are going to shut down for the day and I will contact your manager with what's going to be going on. You're going to contact my manager? Yeah, your district manager. Can't remember what his name is off the top of my head. Um, I'll be having a meeting with him and your regional manager and a couple members of HR. Now, that's all the information I'm going to give you. Go ahead and go home for the day. Well, all the employees just left and you're kicking me out. So, who's going to close the store down? You're just going to leave all of these appliances on all day? I know how to do my job, ma'am. I will talk to you soon.

[00:12:21]>> [snorts] >> I'll be seeing you, Melissa. Hopefully not. Okay. Can you come with me in the office? Um, the store is cleared out.

[00:12:28]Can you lock the doors and then we can talk still? Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. We haven't been able to finish this conversation. Yep, I'll go lock the doors. All right, doors are locked.

[00:12:35]What's that? Um, it's a stack of fake hundreds and fifties that I just found in your safe. All right, Melissa. Glad we got to finish this talk. I know today's been crazy, but I have that meeting with your bosses like now. So, do you think that you could maybe shut this stuff down? I know you probably don't want to, but I'll be sure you get paid for it. No, I totally don't mind.

[00:12:53]Thank you so much for handling, manager.

[00:12:54]Something needed to be done. Of course, it's my job. Um, I'll make sure that you're get told whatever's going on.

[00:13:00]Thank you so much. Good luck with the meeting. Thanks for your help. Of course.

[00:13:04]Huh.

[00:13:05]He left the stack of bills.

[00:13:10]Oh, hey Melissa. Just remembered I forgot those bills. I'm just going to grab them real quick. Need all the evidence. Of course, yeah. There you go.

[00:13:17]Thanks again. So, I assume we all know why we're here today. I sure don't. Just got called in for a meeting. Yeah, um, this is the district manager. I'm the regional manager and she's our HR rep.

[00:13:26]Glad you're all here. I do know that the regional manager knows the reason of the visit. I do have to let you guys know that when this situation was happening, the employee called the district manager and he told her that he could do nothing about it. Well, obviously I didn't know she was serious. I thought she was just lying to get something. Obviously, when an employee calls you, an upper level manager with an issue, you don't assume that she's lying. If you would have asked either of us, we could have told you that. But instead, here we are.

[00:13:53]Well, from a professional and state standpoints, we wanted to shut the location down, but we will be fine if district manager here gets disciplined a bit, we fire that general manager, and you have someone good to take her place.

[00:14:06]I don't even know anything about that store, to be honest. Do you have any suggestions? What about the employee that caused all the ruckus, Melissa? If she's brave enough to be a whistleblower, I guess she could manage a store. The employee who was lying? We just went over this, idiot. She was not lying. You guys don't know the half of it. Care to enlighten us? No. Okay, we heard. Um yeah, I think she'd be fine.

[00:14:27]Okay, amazing. Obviously, you guys have some fines to pay, some other things we got to talk about, and there will be emails, calls, and letters, but for now, I think that we can promote her and open your store back up tomorrow. Sounds good to me. I'll get the paperwork done. This is a mistake. You keep saying that, but you have no reason or proof. I just want to go on official record saying that.

[00:14:45]Okay. Thanks for the meeting, ladies.

[00:14:48]Calling me so soon after your little explosion is pretty bold. You're not going to get away with this, you know.

[00:14:53]You might not have been a part of the 50s and 100s policy, but you were definitely a part of those fake bills.

[00:14:58]How do you plan to prove it? Yeah, and how are you going to prove it? You agreed to start switching out our 100s and 50s with fake ones before this whole ordeal even started. Don't play with me.

[00:15:08]We talked about it. We agreed that we were in on that together. So, once they find that stack of fake bills, that's all on you.

[00:15:15]Did you ever think that maybe I was playing you because I wanted you to get in trouble and I wanted to have evidence? How is that playing me? You have proof, and you're just going to get in trouble, too. Huh.

[00:15:25]Okay. Well, I've been recording this conversation, and I'll be sure to show it to the next person who calls me about this.

[00:15:31]This isn't fair. You were in on it, too.

[00:15:33]You told me we should switch out the bills. I agreed with you so you'd finally get fired because you were going to do it without me agreeing either way.

[00:15:40]Um but then the 50/100 policy happened, so you never really got to start your con, did you? Um but thank you for admitting it.

[00:15:47]This is You are manipulative. Only when the situation calls for it. Have a good day. [clears throat] Oh, the regional manager's calling me.

[00:15:55]Perfect. Hello. Hi there, Melissa. Um as you know, the store was shut down for a little bit, but I had a meeting with the Board of Labor and everybody else important, and we agreed that if you wanted to, you could be the manager of the store when we open again. That sounds amazing, and I actually have something for you. Oh, um what's that?

[00:16:12]Regarding the fake stack of bills that the labor guy found, um I know what those are, what they were meant for, and I have a um recorded confession about what they were going to be used for.

[00:16:23]He found a stack of fake bills?

[00:16:25]He didn't tell you? Yeah, there are a bunch of counterfeit hundreds and 50s at the store. He took them. Huh. Okay, um I'll get a hold of him to ask about that. I know that he has to keep them. I just need the information for my records. Um maybe we can talk more in the morning, have a meeting? That works for me. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I know a lot's been going on. Thank you for sticking around. Not a lot of people would have. Easier to keep this job than find a new one. I'll see you in the morning. See you in the morning. Okay, yes, I'm getting it. But you were supposed to take the counterfeit bills home with you so they weren't in the safe. We discussed this.

[00:16:54]What if you had an inspection and they found the bills? They were supposed to be in one of our homes. And why my home, huh? It's become pretty obvious that you're willing to make me the one to go down for everything. That's why I called Frank. Yeah, regional manager. I should have outed you to the labor board guy when we were all sitting there.

[00:17:10]Whatever, Frank. You already labeled yourself as incompetent in that meeting.

[00:17:13]It's not like he would have listened to you. But now, she's coming in this morning for a meeting, and I'm going to have to find a reason to fire her and hire me back, right? Girl, I'm pretty sure you're getting named in a lawsuit if not getting jail time. And you're just going to let me go down by myself.

[00:17:28]What the hell? Don't worry, Pookie. We will handle this. We will handle nothing, Frank. You two need to leave.

[00:17:35]She's about to be here. We cannot be seen together. Fine, but you better make this right. WANT TO GET SOME LUNCH, POOKIE? WHATEVER, FRANK. 8:00 a.m. ready for my meeting. Hey, regional manager, I'm here. You wanted to speak to me this morning? Yeah, Melissa. Why don't you go ahead and have a seat. Okay. Thank you so much for talking to me and not just sweeping me under the rug. Yeah. So, unfortunately, it's come to my attention that you were aware of all of this fraudulent business going on. I'm going to have to let you go as well. Wait, but I have a recorded phone call where she admits to me being a part of it and I admit that it was just I was just trying to get her fired. There was nothing else to do. No one listened to my complaints about her. She was incredibly abusive. I had to get her out of here. Ruse or not, you can't be participating in that kind of business. So, I I am letting you go.

[00:18:21]Your final check should be submitted sometime this week. You had me come all the way down here for that? Um yeah. I hope the job market treats you well.

[00:18:29]Thanks. Have a good day.

[00:18:31]Something's not sitting right with me.

[00:18:34]Hello, Libra Ward. Hi there. Um this is Melissa from that one location that you just left like yesterday. Um I'm I'm having an issue. Oh, what kind of issue?

[00:18:44]When I left that meeting last night, they were talking about promoting you.

[00:18:47]Is that the problem? Well, they took a hard U-turn um and I got fired because they said that I was a part of everything going on even though I wasn't. Um I do have a recorded phone call that I tricked the manager into believing I was on her side, but I never touched those fake bills. But, uh the regional manager just fired me.

[00:19:06]I never even told her about the bills.

[00:19:07]And you know what? They were all acting a little strange at that meeting except for the HR lady. Yeah, I genuinely don't know what's going on anymore and I'm not going back if they try to hire me back, but I do think you should maybe try to figure it out. Did she fire you in store? Yes.

[00:19:24]So, I'm going to assume like most people she forgets that there's cameras. I will figure this out. Thank you for calling me. Do you want me to call you when I find a resolution? Sure, why not? It'll be like the end of a soap opera. I'm sorry you had to go through all this.

[00:19:36]Let me know if you need help finding another job. You got it. Thank you. This is a heavy phone. Oh, hey there. Glad I could catch you here. Fancy that you're here right now. Oh, um Hi labor board guy. Yeah, I was just checking on everything. Um, we're still looking for a management replacement, so we're going to shut down for now. Okay, regional manager. That sounds good. I was thinking I could get access to your office real quick. There's just a few things I need to go over for my reports.

[00:20:01]Um, yeah, sure. Come on. What do you need to look at? I just need to check the cameras for a few things. Okay.

[00:20:06]There you go. Thank you.

[00:20:08]Why are you looking at this morning? No concern to you, ma'am.

[00:20:12]Oh, man, all of you were here this morning? All of us, but uh Oh, no. I totally just spilled my drink all over the keyboard. I am so sorry. It looks like you can't finish looking at those.

[00:20:24]You do realize that these have a hard backup behind me, right?

[00:20:29]What are we going to do about this?

[00:20:31]I think I know what I'm going to do, but it's kind of fun to see you panic.

[00:20:35]Okay, look. When shorting the bank didn't work for us, Frank/Fred and the general manager decided that maybe we could run a hundreds and 50 scam and I might have sort of approved it because it was going to give me a lot of extra money and I don't get paid that much as a regional manager. Okay, but it's not worth losing my job. I Can we maybe just fire them?

[00:20:54]Did Did you just tell me all of that? Look, man, I'm not cut out for this and I really never wanted to get in trouble. I just wanted some money. Life is really hard. Um, but we can just fire Fred/Frank, right?

[00:21:06]I can think about it. Could you maybe explain some more to me? So, originally, we just kept shorting the bank whenever we tried to get change or drop off the deposit. Just five or 10 bucks here or there, and they usually didn't say anything about it, but after the fifth or sixth time, they banned us from getting more change. And so, since we screwed that over, we were thinking a 1,500 scam would be great.

[00:21:24]Frank/Fred, his brother has like this printing press thing, so we printed out some cash, and it worked out pretty okay until you came along and found them.

[00:21:34]And you just told me all that in front of these recording cameras? Yes, in good faith that you'll be on my side. Faith?

[00:21:42]Okay. What do you mean you're arresting me? He told me everything was fine. He's right over there if you want to ask him.

[00:21:46]Everything's fine, right? Tell these officers to leave.

[00:21:51]Oh, labor board guy.

[00:21:52]Hello. Hey there. So, I said I'd call you with an update. Yeah, what happened?

[00:21:56]What's up? Turns out, it went up to the regional manager. Um, they will all be facing charges, and she's getting arrested right now, actually, behind me.

[00:22:04]I didn't do anything. Let me go. So, well, yeah, that's your update. That's insane, but good for you for actually handling it. Yeah. I don't suppose you'll be coming back here, will you?

[00:22:14]Oh, most definitely not. I already found a new job that pays way more. All right, well, good luck. I hope I never have to see you again in the most nicest way possible. Me, too, man. Have a good day.

[00:22:24]You, too.

[00:22:25]Will you quit your whining?

[00:22:27]That's the end of our 50s and 100s series. If you liked it,