I don't know if this post is going to get anywhere, but I am not sure what to do so I am kinda just going to word-vomit here.
I work from home doing office work for a home services company, my 1-year review has come up and it didn't go well. Now I am totally unsure what to do.
About a month ago as it was getting close to my 1 year date, my manager asked me an offhanded question.
“How much do you make now anyway?” – Manager
“$18.50” – Myself
I had misremembered, I was actually hired on for $19.50, but more on that in a minute.
Unbeknownst to me, soon after that question, my manager started discussing my pay change with their boss.
They came to the agreement that I would get a $1 raise from $18.50 to $19.50, which to be honest with you was a little frustrating with the insane growth we have been showing in my department. (We have reached %200 of our goal for 3 months in a row recently)
Whenever this was sent over to the accounting department for my pay to be updated, it was finally noticed that apparently when I was hired (April 2021) my pay was incorrectly entered as $20.00.
Now they are telling me that I will have to pay back the overpay as well as the fact that I told my manager 18.50 instead of 19.50 might be affecting my raise.
When I was going over all my paychecks to add up how much I had even been overpaid I noticed they have been incorrectly deducting $10 a week out of my paycheck for the past 21 weeks.
The extra 50 cents an hour adds up to a little over 1.1k in the past 13 months, so even once you take away the extra deduction it evens out to me owing them over 900 bucks.
My manager ended up approaching me with two offers, both the fact that I “get to choose” and the offers themselves make me feel like I'm being manipulated.
Offer 1: I get my full $1.00 raise going from $20 to $21 but I have to pay back the 900
Offer 2: I a 50 cent raise taking my pay from $20 to $20.50, which is 1$ more than the 19.50 I was supposed to be making, but I would not have to pay back the 900
The reason I'm being offered these two options is that my Manager's boss wants to hide this whole situation from the owners. My manager is trying to spin that it's in my best interest because if the owners found out the situation would look like I was stealing money from the company and knew I was being overpaid and didn't report it.
I've had hints about how they might sue me and stuff like that said.
I've got friends trying to talk me into just walking, but my finances aren't really set up to where I could do that without having something else lined up.
Plus maybe this is my manager's manipulations working on me, but here in GA work from home jobs that will pay 20.50 aren't easy to come by.