Man Collects Paychecks From Company He Never Worked For

[D-Man]

This is my first thread creation in the Cigar Lounge, so please be gentle.

I read a similar article in the newspaper yesterday and figured this would be the perfect place to discuss it.

An Illinois man has admitted banking more than $470,000 in paychecks from a New Jersey company he never worked for. Anthony Armatys, 35, of Palatine, Ill., pleaded guilty Monday in New Jersey Superior Court to one count of theft as part of a plea bargain. Prosecutors say Armatys accepted a job with Basking Ridge, N.J.-based telecommunications company Avaya Inc. in September 2002, then changed his mind. But the company’s computer system never removed his name from the payroll. Paychecks were deposited into his bank account until February 2007, when Avaya auditors discovered the mistake. Prosecutors are recommending a six-year prison term and restitution. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 8.

To sum this up, a guy applies for a job, gets the job, and then decides to never show up for work. However, the company never deleted him from their system and continued to pay him for FIVE YEARS, totaling around $470K. Now, he's being prosecuted for theft and could face prison time.

If I may play devil's advocate for a minute, if someone is giving me free money then I'm going to take it. Who am I to speak up about it? But, I didn't realize it was against the law to receive free money because someone in accounting made a mistake.

My question to all of you is: Is this man's prison term recommendation justified?

(I hope this is good enough for the bar room, guys.)

 

[Smooth Sexual Chocolate]

Six years in prison for a company's accounting mistakes, sounds like this guy should use some of his 470k and find himself a better lawyer.

I don't see how you can charge this guy with theft when he didn't steel anything, he was given money. The company fucked up, now there down half a million ( They didn't seem to miss the money too much either, as it took them five years to find out).

It sounds like the company has a bad case of sand in the vagina, they messed up, its their problem, this is a moral issue and I don't know how you can prosecute someone on morals.

 

[Барбоса]

My guess is that there is some kind of financial threshold regarding this kind of mistake. I was involved in a similar transaction a few years ago which resulted in me receiving goods that I had not paid for. An internet company sent me two DVD players despite me only paying for the one. I decided to be the good guy and followed the procedures for returning the duplicate. Two weeks later I found that I had been "refunded" for the duplicate. I tried again but got no word back from the company.

I ended up getting a high end DVD player for the price of sending the duplicate back (about $10 I think). Technically, I would say that I have broken the law but would like to think that I covered myself by attempting to fix the situation.

Somehow I doubt that this gentleman tried to sort out the appearance of nearly $500,000 in his account over the space of five years in a similar way and therefore I think that he deserves to have the book thrown at him.

Corporate stupidity does not make breaking the law okay.

 

[Mr. TM]

Really, how can they charge him? They were giving him money. He wasn't stealing it, it was going right to his account because of what the company was doing. Come to think of it, I better keep an eye on my bank account to make sure that I am not having someone put money in my account so that I am not convicted of theft.

 

[D-Man]

Corporate stupidity does not make breaking the law okay.

But you see, my argument here is that no one seems to be able to explain how this incident is breaking the law. The guy applied for a job, decided not to take it, sat back, and collected paychecks while not doing any justified work. He didn't walk into a vault and steal any money... they GAVE it to him. So how is that a crime?

I think this is extreme... I understand that morally he should have spoken up, but in the end, we're all human. Who, in their right mind, would turn down thousands of dollars that was given to them without any methods of extortion or theft? In this day and age, I say not many.

If anyone is guilty of any crime, it's Avaya. They're guilty of neglect, ignorance, and stupidity.

 

[Slyfox696]

I think the man has to make a good faith based attempt to correct the situation in order to not be in violation of the law. It was obvious the company was paying him for work they thought he was doing, not just giving him money. If he never made any attempts to contact the company of their error, or even if he never officially quit, then he knew he was getting money for work he wasn't doing.

Not only is that illegal (apparently), it also is morally wrong. While I agree that an idiot should always part company with his money, I also agree in only getting paid for things you earn and deserve.

He knew that he was in the wrong, and he never tried to fix it, and I'm guessing he spent the money. That should be against the law. However, his sentence shouldn't be jail time, the punishment should fit the crime, in this case, community service...assuming he doesn't have a past record.

 

[Барбоса]

But you see, my argument here is that no one seems to be able to explain how this incident is breaking the law.

Could it not come under the heading of "accepting money under false pretense" or "charging for services not rendered" or more simply "fraud"?

It is possible that because this guy accepted one count of theft as a plea bargain he could have been looking at a conviction for something worse.

 

[Loveless]

I don't get this at all. From a legal standpoint, the guy is employed with the company.
Look if I go into work and no-one bothers giving me anything to do, am I then breaking the law by getting paid for doing nothing. How is this any different from a guy working at home who doesn't get sent any work? You can't press criminal theft charges against someone for not doing their job. You can fire them but send them to jail? That's fucked up
Now yeah, morally this guy was wrong but technically he hasn't done anything illegal from where I'm standing.

 

[Remix]

except that he wasn't working from home. he wasnt working for the company at all. he got the job, then decided 'hey i dont want to work for a telecom company' and never showed up.

 

[PEP3]

You guys can't really believe that this man did nothing wrong, can you?

It's clear to me that this man is stealing. Perhaps I just have a more defined idea of honesty. This is the same thing as going to the store and having the cashier give you change for a $20 when you only paid her with a $10. Yes, it's an oversight, but common decency dictates one should say, "You've given me too much."

While I think that a six-year prison sentence is quite a bit for a crime that did not physically harm anyone, this man should be made to repay the $470K he received, plus interest, PLUS the company's legal fees. He should also be placed on probation AND have to pay taxes for that money, since you know he probably didn't claim a penny of it.

 

[Sivsyboi]

Ok, both sides:

It was the company's mistake for never deleting him from the system. This could easily be seen as the company's mistake and the worst case scenario is that he pays the money back.

The guy failed to inform the company of the mistake. He allowed it to continue for five years until he was found out and prosecuted for it.


From my point of view, the guy was in the wrong. He accepted money under false pretences (thank you Captian Barbosa) and commited fraud. But still, six years? I would think something like 3. The only thing I'm still trying to figure out is why this guy turned down a job that payed just under 100K a year

 

[The Kingpin]

You guys can't really believe that this man did nothing wrong, can you?

It's clear to me that this man is stealing. Perhaps I just have a more defined idea of honesty. This is the same thing as going to the store and having the cashier give you change for a $20 when you only paid her with a $10. Yes, it's an oversight, but common decency dictates one should say, "You've given me too much."

While I think that a six-year prison sentence is quite a bit for a crime that did not physically harm anyone, this man should be made to repay the $470K he received, plus interest, PLUS the company's legal fees. He should also be placed on probation AND have to pay taxes for that money, since you know he probably didn't claim a penny of it.

I can. I mean I get that you have strong morals, and yes a lot of people have strong morals, but is it just me or, like in the example you gave, if a cashier gave me a 20.00$ bill when I paid with a 10.00$ bill I'm gonna say tell her that she gave me the wrong change, however this is a small scale example.

In the United States of America millions of people are Bankrupt or Jobless due to varying reasons that stem from not being able to find work to a poor Health Care Plan or whatever reason, and Americans, when offered money will take it no matter what the circumstance. Now obviously you have morals and give back the change but on big scale, not so much.

You're telling me that this guy deserves to go to jail for doing something 95% of the North American population would have done, which is get paid an extra 7833.33$ a month for doing absolutely nothing and only being caught 5years later.

Now yes there is the "You should have told someone" issue, but for god sakes people, if you found out that you quit a job, then the next month you get a check for 7833.33$ for not working at the company, you're going to keep it no? Then, thinking it was a one time thing, you let it go, then the following month BAM! another pay check from the same company for 7833.33$. You tell me that you're not gonna let the money roll.

I'm sorry but you can be as moral as you want but I see nothing wrong with this, yes he didn't tell the company but by god money does crazy things to people.

 

[antfarm612]

I think he should have fought it. I'm not a legal expert, but I don't see how it can be illegal to accept money. There was nothing fraudulent about what he did. He never claimed he worked there, they just assumed he did. Sounds like they fucked up and he capitolized.

 

[Razor]

This is my first thread creation in the Cigar Lounge, so please be gentle.

D-Man. You're better than "please be gentle." C'mon, dude.

To sum this up, a guy applies for a job, gets the job, and then decides to never show up for work. However, the company never deleted him from their system and continued to pay him for FIVE YEARS, totaling around $470K. Now, he's being prosecuted for theft and could face prison time.

Yeah, he quite plainly broke the law. You know, the "Don't take stuff you didn't earn" one.

If I may play devil's advocate for a minute, if someone is giving me free money then I'm going to take it. Who am I to speak up about it? But, I didn't realize it was against the law to receive free money because someone in accounting made a mistake.

And you'd have broken the law known as theft. Just because they made a mistake doesn't mean you get to reap the ill gotten gains of 470,000 dollars that you didn't earn.

My question to all of you is: Is this man's prison term recommendation justified?

Completely. He stole from a company. He didn't outright hack their computers or hold them at gun point, but he also didn't tell them that they were mistakenly giving him hundreds of thousands of dollars that he didn't earn. Hell, he made the conscious decision not to work for and earn any monetary compensation from them.

But you see, my argument here is that no one seems to be able to explain how this incident is breaking the law

He stole. He took money he did not earn from people who didn't know they were giving it to him. It's the equivalent of snatching 20 bucks just before a blind person hands it over to the cashier. They might have thought they handed it to the cashier every time, and thought nothing of 20 dollars disappearing from their hands, but that is still stealing.

The guy applied for a job, decided not to take it, sat back, and collected paychecks while not doing any justified work. He didn't walk into a vault and steal any money... they GAVE it to him. So how is that a crime?

Did you see my blind person analogy up there? I'm rather fond of it.

I think this is extreme... I understand that morally he should have spoken up, but in the end, we're all human. Who, in their right mind, would turn down thousands of dollars that was given to them without any methods of extortion or theft? In this day and age, I say not many.

1) Laws are there to make sure we act morally. If the laws don't make sure we do, the Social Contract will not hold under our collective "Honor System." He didn't act morally, and there was a law against his actions. He's going to jail, or going to be fined, or going to be put on probation. Either way it's justified.

2) I would say anyone who doesn't want to go to jail for theft should give the money back. And besides, just because a lot of people wouldn't give the money back, that doesn't mean the person is right in his actions. It means a lot of people are wrong.

If anyone is guilty of any crime, it's Avaya. They're guilty of neglect, ignorance, and stupidity.

Hmmm...neglect? How did they exercise neglect? Ignorance and stupidity I'll give you, but those (quite thankfully) aren't against the law quite yet. The man in question stole 470,000 dollars from a company that wasn't any the wiser. He broke the law. It might be a law that you believe everyone would break if given the chance, but he still broke the law.

 

[PEP3]

I can. I mean I get that you have strong morals, and yes a lot of people have strong morals, but is it just me or, like in the example you gave, if a cashier gave me a 20.00$ bill when I paid with a 10.00$ bill I'm gonna say tell her that she gave me the wrong change, however this is a small scale example.

In the United States of America millions of people are Bankrupt or Jobless due to varying reasons that stem from not being able to find work to a poor Health Care Plan or whatever reason, and Americans, when offered money will take it no matter what the circumstance. Now obviously you have morals and give back the change but on big scale, not so much.

You're telling me that this guy deserves to go to jail for doing something 95% of the North American population would have done, which is get paid an extra 7833.33$ a month for doing absolutely nothing and only being caught 5years later.

Now yes there is the "You should have told someone" issue, but for god sakes people, if you found out that you quit a job, then the next month you get a check for 7833.33$ for not working at the company, you're going to keep it no? Then, thinking it was a one time thing, you let it go, then the following month BAM! another pay check from the same company for 7833.33$. You tell me that you're not gonna let the money roll.

I'm sorry but you can be as moral as you want but I see nothing wrong with this, yes he didn't tell the company but by god money does crazy things to people.

Simply put, this is fraud. He can get as "crazy" as he wants, but it's illegal. Again, I don't think he should go to jail (they're already over-run, and white collar crimes like this shouldn't be penalized the same way violent crimes should), but he should face heavy financial ramifications.

 

[The Kingpin]

Simply put, this is fraud. He can get as "crazy" as he wants, but it's illegal. Again, I don't think he should go to jail (they're already over-run, and white collar crimes like this shouldn't be penalized the same way violent crimes should), but he should face heavy financial ramifications.

I agree with you on that, however I have a hard time trying to figure out how high up the "Illegal Ladder" this is in terms of stealing money, I meen he wasn't really doing anything to steal it, he wasn't playing people and making Money Pyramids Bernie Madoff and he wasn't stealing it from anywhere like a bank robber, but I will agree this is fraud but he can't be overly blamed for this as its mostly the company's fault for not being smart enough to say "Hey who the hell is this guy, he doesn't work here, we can't pay him", to me what he did should at most get him 60days Prison time and 10,000$ fine and thats the most you could possibly give him because ask any of the cops, judges, lawyers, anyone and they would do the same (Probably already do considering how corrupt the legal system is these days).

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

Well this is a contract law situation. The two parties entered a contract where they'd pay him for the work that he did for them, which he never did, yet he still took the money. If he'd worked for them for years and NEVER been paid, then the company would be liable to be sued under contract law. Therefore he is liable for prosecution. I didn't think jail would be the punishment, but i'm guessing that he doesn't have half a million dollars to give back, so what else can they do? Community service isn't the answer because while he may have to pick up trash at the weekend or help the aged or the poor, he still gets to go home and enjoy his ill-begotten possessions, so therefore jail would be the only fitting punishment really.

 

[SavageTaker]

What I see here is that both parties are at fault in a way. The man was at fault because he was collecting money that he didn’t deserve. He never worked for it and earned it therefore, like Razor said, he stole from the company. Now, I’m sure some of us would do the same thing that he did if we were in his position. I honestly wouldn’t and I had a similar experience just with much, MUCH less money.

Now, I did mention that the company was wrong in a way. They should have been checking up on the employees that they are giving paychecks to. Once they saw he wasn’t in their payroll then they should have removed him from it and stopped paying him a long time ago. But they didn’t and that’s their fault.

Since they were both at fault, I think that the punishment that is being suggested for the man is not the right punishment. Maybe they could have him do community service like Sly said or if the crime done will get him into jail, then they could have him pay back the company and every time he pays a certain amount of money they take some time out of his sentence. If he pays it all back then he doesn’t spend any time in jail. I just think that’s a much better idea because the company fucked up too.

 

[CH David]

I see no reason for jail time in this situation. I really think that he should have to just pay that money back in its entirety. Both parties are at fault here, no question about it. But he told them he wouldn't take the job. Whose fault is it that he got the money? Someone in the financial department of the company did not take his name out of the system. I would say that is negiligence and a failure to do your own job.

The only question I really have is, what kind of employee would he have been? Would it have been a corporate employee? If he was going to be a regular employee, getting paid that much a month, he would have had to clock in at work. That is how I have to do it and my friends and family have to do it. If you don't clock in then you don't get paid and people would wonder what is going on. Now if he was a corporate employee, then you get paid no matter if you clock in or not. You get paid for the hours you are meant to be working, at least if it is salary, if my understanding is correct with my higher ups.

Should he have turned it in? Sure. Is it his fault for getting the money? Hell no it isn't. Both are at fault. There should be a mutual agreement there. The company fucked up, he pays them back, and they go about their business.