Preface: I currently live and work in Japan, however this situation isn't common here as far as I know. I've spoken to some of my local Japanese friends, and they all raised an eyebrow and said that it sounded stupid what my company was doing.
TLDR: Company sent me a form I needed to legally stay in the country and keep working for them. They wanted reimbursement for the postage stamp. I refused.
I have been working in Japan as an English teacher for about 5 years now. I've worked for dispatch companies, which means that the city boards of education hire the company I work for, then the company send the English teacher to the school. For about 4 years, both my wife and I worked for the same company and it was going fine.
Last year, my wife got pregnant and was pushed out of the company (that's a story for another time). She changed from a working visa in Japan to a dependent visa. For her to qualify for a dependent visa, I needed a piece of paper from my company that states I am currently employed, how many hours I work a week, and how much I make annually (it's abysmal, so I won't bother telling you the amount).
Well this company has written in it's handbook that after the paper is mailed out, the employees are required to reimburse the company the cost of the postage stamp. In this case the stamp was 244 Yen, or about $2.
Well for about 9 months, I refused to send back the stamp. This struck me as completely irrational for my company to ask for reimbursement of a postage stamp, let alone an amount so small. This company has more than 200 employees, and is no way struggling. So I felt justified in ignoring it. Well for 9 months, at least once a month, I would get an email from human resources asking where the stamp is and that haven't received it yet. I, of course, would ignore these emails and go on about my business as usual. I wasn't about to pay for a postage stamp to send a postage stamp. It made no sense to me. Plus, there is no circumstance where I can see a reason an employee should be paying an employer for anything. Especially not for a form that is required for that employee to legally remain in the country.
Well the time has come for me to leave Japan, and I guess my company was really needing that $2. So much so that they sent someone from the office to the school I work at to collect the money from me. While I had to cave in, I still count this as a win since it probably cost them more in gas and transportation to get the stamp from me.