Blackberry Blindside

December 17, 2006 10:35 PM

Can an employer enter into a contract for which the employee is responsible without his permission?

I work for a multi-billion dollar company with global offices. My office is in Los Angeles. For years, I resisted getting a Blackberry, because the thought of being tethered to my in-box 24/7 was not appealing. Also, I can check email via my laptop or EVDO-enabled phone, so I'm never willfully out of pocket.

This summer, I returned from time out of the office to find a Blackberry had been issued to me and was waiting in my office. Actually having the Blackberry has not been as bad as I expected, but what's annoying: although I neither wanted nor requested the Blackberry, one was issued in my name -- and I am expected to handle the bill every month, then fill out an expense report for reimbursement. It's like being invited out to dinner by someone and then being handed the check.

The bill is not onerous -- it's probably just that I'm irrationally irritated by any company policy that encroaches ever further on my time away from the office while adding more meaningless paperwork for the privilege. Also, the company can clearly pay for it -- they'd just like to hold on to their money a little while longer, thank you very much.

Before I complain to HR that if the company wants me to have a Blackberry, they should arrange to take care of it -- is this even legal? The more I thought about it, the more I realized, were I not able to pay for it, it would probably damage my credit report -- and there seems something vaguely wrong about a company enrolling me for service (for which I'm sure there is a contract I did not see beforehand), having the bill sent to my office, and telling me after the fact I'm responsible for paying the bills -- albeit temporarily.

posted by mrkinla to work & money (15 comments total)

Pretty sure it's legal. I've had jobs that require me to be accessible by cell phone for the past six years, and only this year am I finally getting reimbursed for the favor.

Are you salaried or hourly? If you're an hourly worker (in the US) you should keep track of any time you spend on the Blackberry for work purposes, and make sure you're paid for it.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 10:45 PM on December 17, 2006

I have a cell phone for work, and I'm responsible for the bill each month. However, I'm expected to expense the bill and get reimbursed. It's not bad at all, due to a corporate discount my 500-minute-a-month plan with Cingular has somehow come out to less than $10/month for each the past six months.

The phone is listed with the carrier as being under a corporate account, and my employer is listed as having "financial responsibility" for the account, not me (even though the account is in my name). If I fail to pay the bill, they call someone up at Corporate instead of calling me.

This works out well, but can be a pain for people who leave/are laid off, as they then have to go through the process to have their phones transferred from the company account to a "normal" account with their name on it, if they want to keep their number.
posted by mrbill at 11:37 PM on December 17, 2006

The question is whether they can enter into a legally binding contract on his behalf. Without power of attorney, the answer is clearly no. Some employment agreements have been including various forms of limited power of attorney, but I would really doubt that it would cover this situation. Basically, they can make it a condition of employment that you have the Blackberry and pay the bill and expense it, but if, say, you were to quit, I don't think you would be legally on the hook for the bill without a contract.
posted by cameldrv at 11:43 PM on December 17, 2006

I can't see how they could make you legally responsible without pretending to be you to the phone company, so either they've committed fraud or you aren't responsible. Talk to the phone company.
posted by cillit bang at 11:46 PM on December 17, 2006

A cell phone contract is essentially a credit account. It's possible that advice for managing corporate credit cards would thus stand. This post on using corporate credit cards for travel may help. Failing that, this post from the Chicago Tribune on corporate credit cards may also help.
posted by acoutu at 12:16 AM on December 18, 2006

Call the phone company and tell them that you did not authorize this and don't want the phone.
posted by LarryC at 4:08 AM on December 18, 2006

LarryC writes "Call the phone company and tell them that you did not authorize this and don't want the phone."

Oh yeah, that's a smart idea.

It's probably exactly as above: the company is financially responsible in the end, it's just your name on it. Credit is absolutely not an issue, since the company will reimburse you for any costs--and depending on your company, you can probably claim the expense before writing a cheque to the cell provider, in case you're a little short that month.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:45 AM on December 18, 2006

No, of course they can't enter you into a contract without your consent. But they're perfectly able to make it a condition of employment.
posted by raf at 6:35 AM on December 18, 2006

As cameldrv & cillit bang point out, unless there's something you're not telling us, it seems pretty clear that your employer cannot enter an agreement with the phone company that binds you without your knowledge and assent.

But as raf said, it's perfectly legitimate for an employer to require something like this as a term of employment, and they'd be justified in firing you if you rebuked the contract. In fact, depending on what state you're in, they don't even need a justification, so you could be dropped like a hot potato.

So the question becomes, now that you know your legal rights, what are you going to do about the situation? Is it worth getting fired (or taking a serious chance at it) in order to raise a big stink over this? Maybe you could take a less confrontational approach with HR, and ask if there's any way to transfer the contract to the company, as you feel it was inappropriate to assign it to you the way they did. The thing is, at this point probably easiest way to handle such a "transfer" legally would be for them to guarantee to pay the phone bill for you each month until the contract expires - and it sounds like that's where you already stand. So I'm not sure exactly what you expect to get out of any complaint.
posted by rkent at 7:00 AM on December 18, 2006

cameldrv is correct. retired california lawyer here to tell you that the answer to your question is "no".
posted by bruce at 10:06 AM on December 18, 2006

To me, the bigger question would be, does the company have the right to take action against you when you refuse to pay the bill out of your own pocket, even if you're going to get reimbursed?

I was in a similar situation once involving a travel expense. I was to take a business trip, and was told that per company policy, I would pay for my own trip, and then get reimbursed. I emailed the appropriate people, effectively saying 'gosh, that's too bad, because I can't afford that trip right now.' They made arrangements to advance me the money.

Your situation is a little different, but seems the same in principle. You could just say 'Sorry, but for reasons that are none of your business, times are tight and every penny I earn gets spent as soon as I cash my check. Therefore, I will not be paying this bill. Let me know if I can be of any further help.'
posted by bingo at 10:19 AM on December 18, 2006

'Sorry, but for reasons that are none of your business, times are tight and every penny I earn gets spent as soon as I cash my check. Therefore, I will not be paying this bill. Let me know if I can be of any further help.'


I would amend that to, "This is not an expense I was planning on budgeting for. While I understand that I need to have a Blackberry, I cannot be out-of-pocket for the bills in the period between paying them and being reimbursed. Can we arrange to either have the bill sent directly to A/P, or arrange for an expense cheque to be cut for me the day the bill comes in?"

Less confrontational == works better. Another option would be to have your company advance you whatever the average monthly payment would be, times three months. Pay it, then expense it--they'll deduct the advance from the expense per normal procedures. Do that for two months, then have them stop deducting. This way you're always 1 month ahead. Plus, hey, you're earning a little interest on the money sitting in your account.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:11 AM on December 18, 2006

Yea, less confrontation and instead of just saying "I Hate This Situation," figure out how to present a solution or ask for a solution first ... btw, a few years ago - some companies would take out life insurance on low level employees with themselves (the company itself) as the beneficiaries without letting anyone know so the broader answer is yes, the comapny can and will speak for you but getting mad or confrontational is not the best first response.
posted by jbelkin at 4:16 PM on December 18, 2006

I can say that while it's certainly not legal I would not in any way be surprised if you were setup with full legal responsibility. I work for a large wireless company and I have been involved in corporate compliance cases where sales representatives working with your IT or purchasing department setup users using your employers HR data that gives them all the relevent credit information at their fingertips.

To verify, I would contact the wireless carrier directly and ask who has final billing responsibility on the account. If they say you are responsible feel free to email me (email in profile) and I can give some advice on actions you can take.
posted by Octoparrot at 5:06 PM on December 18, 2006

Thanks to everyone for very thoughtful answers. I may have come off as angrier in my original post than I really am -- I am not interested in flinging my Blackberry at my employer and stalking out the front door. I was more interested in suggesting to HR that, as one way to make the lives of employees a little easier, it would behoove the company to take care of these kinds of expenses upfront, given that it's a multi-billion dollar operation -- and that by the time I've filled out the expense report, an assistant has routed it for necessary approvals, someone in Accounts Payable has processed it, etc. -- the company has likely already paid a nasty premium in lost productivity alone. Because "making employees' lives easier" is almost never a concern but anything that smacks of violating a CA employee law is, even a brief mention of, "Besides, I'm not even sure enrolling me for service and then having the bill sent to me first to pay on the company's behalf is legal" would likely have someone from HR scrambling down to Finance to ask exactly WHO made this decision, and how fast can this be taken care of? I just wanted to know if that last mention was true. In a department that has seen annual turnover of between 30%-40%, this seems like a simple, easy way to demonstrate they DO put some thought into it before adding another item to their employees' long list of responsibilities.

Thank you again to everyone for their very well-considered responses.
posted by mrkinla at 6:54 AM on December 20, 2006