Company pays man it never hired for more than 4 years
November 9, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: HR Tech, In this week's e-newsletter - Tech
How’s this for a great job in this economy: getting paid for more than four years of doing absolutely nothing.
That’s what happened to an Illinois man, who’s now in court as a result of his great gig.
Anthony Armatys accepted a job with New Jersey-based Avaya, Inc., before he changed his mind and declined. But the company’s payroll system never removed his name from the list of employees.
So Armatys stayed quiet and received his salary until Avaya’s auditors discovered the mistake — nearly four and a half years later, the Associated Press reports.
Armatys has plead guilty to theft. Prosecutors are recommending six years in jail plus restitution.
Though the company will probably get the money back, some more careful auditing could have done the trick.
November 10th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I want to work for AVAYA!!!
November 10th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
To Essie….
Why would you want to “work” for Avaya, when you can get paid and not work for them?
November 10th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Except they don’t pay their real employees anywhere near what they’re worth.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
That is sad that it took them 4 1/2 years to figure that out. We have dual control and two people review the payroll. We have never paid anyone we should not have.
November 11th, 2009 at 4:00 am
The man’s actions may have classified as theft, but so do the mistakes of the employees. Not seeing that for four years is completely unacceptable. They should be fired, and jailed with him!!!!! That is total incompetence. Who else did they over-pay!
November 11th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Correctly said, this is total incompetence! The employees should have caught it! But so should have the manager, we should trust that our employees are doing their jobs, but if we do not verify, then could that not constitute as incompetence on our part as well. Who was the manager that signed off on the payroll, authorizing the payroll department to pay it? I think that the real responsibility should fall on leadership! A true leader will credit his/her team when they succeed, but accept responsibility when the team fails. It is incompetence, but on who’s part, the employees or the manager?
November 11th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Years ago as a new Manager of HR for a small manufacturing company I was overwhelmed with work. I was told that “HR pay records were incorrect” and that Payroll (Finance dept.) had correct info (which is also what managers were receiving in their monthly expense reports). After six months I came up for air and had my new staff conduct an audit of Offer letters from Personnel files, HR system records and payroll record. I discovered HR had been correct and it was Payroll who was overpaying and underpaying staff! I also found it interesting that the Directors were not seeing the overpayment in their reports.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Most people would be ethical enough to let the company know about the error. The fact that he didn’t tells me they’re much better off without him.
Mistakes happen and a lot of payroll departments in big companies are isolated enough that if no one tells them about a change, they would never know. They don’t personally interact with every employee in the company, so they wouldn’t know the person wasn’t in that department without the paperwork telling them to terminate / remove him. Unless it’s a small organization where payroll people should have known, I can see how this could easily happen. For him to have kept quiet and taken all that money is nothing but criminal and I hope he is prosecuted and convicted accordingly.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
R.B…. Very good points! I agree that most people would/should do the right thing and report it to the proper department. As you stated, it would not necessarily be the “employee’s” of the HR/Payroll department that missed the mistake. It very well may have been not properly reported and therefore was undiscovered until an audit was performed. In fact 4 1/2 years after the fact it would be extremely difficult to follow the steps all the way through to identify who was to blame. However, as
Deb… stated the directors/executives/managers…. someone, should have know if they were properly watching the numbers. When you do this for a living and you are use to seeing certain things, it becomes second nature to notice that something is incorrect or out of place.
Almost like when someone slightly moves something in your home, or when someone changes a hair style; you may not know exactly what it is at first but you know that something is off, and if you search hard enough it will not take you long at all to discover it! In just a basic report, a department head should notice an increase in labor (which is typically one of largest expenses for a company, and most closely monitored) and to notice labor jump up and knowing what payroll should have been, that should ring a bell; you would think.
November 11th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
it doesn’t matter if it is a few dollars erorr at the grocery store or a payroll glitch, it is still stealing and that person who knowingly keeps the money is a dishonest person. mistakes in our personal lives and in business will happen. we are human and prone to make mistakes but honest and integrity are a personal choice. we chose what kind of person we are going to be. integrity and honesty are manifest by doing the right thing when no one is looking simply because it is the right thing to do. This man hs no integrity and is dishonest. if he will be dishonest in this situation what else will he cheat on?
November 16th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Hmmm. No one saw this man’s face for 4-1/2 years and yet he maintained his place on the payroll. I would be very interested to know how his manager and the rest of the management team explained his place on the payroll during their performance and salary reviews for those 4-1/2 years. Our management team reviewed EVERYONE’S performance twice a year to determine retention ranking and eligibility for raises, and a faceless name would not have been able to exist for that long without raising major red flags. Gross incompetence? Yes. But I’d look deeper at potential management fraud.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Wasn’t the department over budget on salaries? How small was this guy’s pay?
November 17th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
The Employee who never worked was at fault for not letting the Company know that he didn’t work for them! The Supervisor of that department that he worked for should have reviewed the hours his department was charged and discovered something was in error!
Too many folks asleep at the wheel on that ship!
November 18th, 2009 at 9:20 am
My husband is a full time employee of the national guard. When he was deployed two years ago he was payed from a different system but for three months they kept paying him double – his deployment pay and his regular full time pay. I kept telling them this was wrong and please stop paying him from his full time pay. I tried to pay the money back but had to wait for the government systme to “bill us” for the error. When they finally did they wanted us to pay them back more then he was paid! Never have straightened this out. He’s been back for a year and they take the over payment out of his check little by little. I am sure we will pay back more then we received but that is bureacracy for you. And they want to run our health care!!!!!
November 20th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I would have showed up at the office on occasion and put my name on some meaninless memos to show I was an employee. I doubt if this person goes to jail. Don’t ge me wrong, they did do the wrong thing by cashing the checks.
Here’s a suggestion – Fire the Auditors.