Tried posting on r/legaladvice but thought I’d ask here as well.
Looking for legal advice on a situation that’s been happening with my mom at her current job. She has been working for a friend these last two years and at first everything was good, they’d opened a new store together and while her friend who we can call Sarah funded the money to start the store up while my mom ran all day to day operations at the store.
So the last year has not been so good. She’s been failing to purchase new clothes and not paying wages on time almost every pay period to my mom. It got to the point that my mother had to use her own credit cards to buy more clothes to fill up the shelves, which Sarah promised to pay her back “once the store made more money.” She also told my mom of text that is the reason she doesn’t pay her on time either.
So after this went on for months my mom finally went looking for another job and found another store. She submitted her 2 weeks and finished it out. She also asked for a time frame that Sarah would pay her back the 16k she owes, to which she responded she’ll have to check her paperwork.
Fast forward to last weekend, my mom calls me crying saying Sarah told corporate she fired her and that my mom was doing such a bad job running the store blah blah, when Sarah only came in once or twice a month.
That’s not even the worst part, she called her new employer and told them background information without permission and the same stuff she told corporate as well bad mouthing my mom. My mom got a call from the new owners saying they didn’t like what they found in her background and she could not be trusted. (My mom never signed permission to run a background check)
Also that they would not be paying her for the hours she worked last week.
My mom has text/email proof of the late salary, the wage theft, and the money owed by sarah. What should I do to help her because my mother is devastated that one of her “best friends” would do this. Thank you
Edit: I can give more info if needed but was trying to not give out any names or info that could come back to my mom.