Someone stole the payroll stubbs! What do we do?

May 30, 2008 8:43 AM

Someone stole the ADP envelopes from my work by somehow calling ADP and asking to change the address. Apparently all the perpetrator needed was the name and address of our company. What do we do now?

1) What do I personally do, as an employee, do to protect myself?

2) What should my boss do to protect us and the business?

posted by idledebonair to law & government (16 comments total)

1) keep track of your credit. My ADP stub has my full name and home address on it. Not sure what an ID thief can do with that.

2) Consult corporate counsel.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:50 AM on May 30, 2008

Someone can get a house or an apartment with your paystubs. Especially in New York City where the overwhelming demand for housing often supplants the need for strict fact checking.
posted by idledebonair at 8:52 AM on May 30, 2008

I would look into wh yit was so easy for that person to call adp and get the address changed.

I would seriously look into having the company doing there own paychecks. HAve the company get a lawyer and see what can be done. this is a major screw up on adp's part.

Also have your company email Theconsumerist.com and have them post a story on this. This is something that should not go undone.
posted by majortom1981 at 9:07 AM on May 30, 2008

@majortom1981: It's just consumerist.com and I emailed them before I posted here!
posted by idledebonair at 9:16 AM on May 30, 2008

Consider that this may be a semi-inside job by a disgruntled current or recently terminated employee.

Since it's theft, it also should be reported to the cops.
posted by beagle at 9:30 AM on May 30, 2008

Bogus. No way did ADP agree to some stranger's request to change your payroll address. This is some combination of an inside job and, probably, not all the facts being present and/or factual.

1. Somebody signed for those envelopes. Who?

2. ADP will only interact with one or two authorized people from your firm, who still have to slip them authentication. Who are they?
posted by gum at 9:47 AM on May 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Oh, and

3. Even more than you, ADP wants to solve this. Their core business is getting clients to trust them with their payrolls. I don't buy that your company contacted ADP and they said, "Oh, some stranger had us reroute your packet to a new address. Have a nice day."
posted by gum at 9:53 AM on May 30, 2008

ADP has never required us to sign for it. They usually come by and hand it to an employee. It's a small company. There are only 4 of us. But what happened is now that we think about it, we realize we haven't seen an envelope for 2 or 3 months. Everyone is on direct deposit and get paid monthly so I guess people just hadn't really considered that we didn't get pay stubs.

Today we got a phone call from a landlord demanding that the owner "come downstairs" to talk about rent. He thought we were an apartment uptown. Well. We are on the ground floor in Chelsea.
posted by idledebonair at 10:09 AM on May 30, 2008

When something sketchy happened with the payroll data, the company I was working for at the time paid for three years worth of credit monitoring service for each employee.
posted by jamaro at 10:15 AM on May 30, 2008

It's a small company. There are only 4 of us. But what happened is now that we think about it, we realize we haven't seen an envelope for 2 or 3 months. Everyone is on direct deposit and get paid monthly so I guess people just hadn't really considered that we didn't get pay stubs.

And you're . . . blaming ADP for the mess you're in? You should be thanking Christ climbing a pole that your company's financial cluelessness hasn't had more repercussions than this.

Not that it necessarily hasn't.

Hire an accountant this afternoon, and let this tip of the iceberg be his or her first assignment. And be ready to hire a lawyer tomorrow.
posted by gum at 11:14 AM on May 30, 2008

Gum: What are you talking about? I didn't blame ADP for anything. Where did I say anyone was to blame? I just presented the facts. I will tell the boss to hire an accountant and a a lawyer, but I'm just the graphic designer. I don't exactly have much sway in the matter.

I guess I just assumed there was some delay with the boss opening and distributing the pay stubs instead of assuming that they'd been stolen. I didn't really notice the pay stubs had gone missing. If there was a discrepancy with how much was being put in my direct deposit, however, you can be sure that I would notice.
posted by idledebonair at 12:24 PM on May 30, 2008

I didn't blame ADP for anything.

You alleged that any old stranger can call up ADP and have business payroll records diverted to another address. And you assured majortom1981 that you'd already e-mailed consumerist.com to launch an investigation of "why it was so easy for that person to call adp and get the address changed."

Where did I say anyone was to blame?

Um, your boss is to blame. Putting you and your colleagues through this, no matter how buddy-buddy you all are, is highly irresponsible. Depending on how the business is incorporated, financial mismanagement on this scale may be criminal. Identity theft and other privacy concerns are certainly valid at this point, but I would also be wondering if your boss has liability insurance, is keeping up payments for your benefits, and so on. If s/he cannot pull together quickly, I'd be looking for another employer. Life's too short for this kind of nonsense.
posted by gum at 1:35 PM on May 30, 2008

We use ADP for our small business and whenever we contact them by phone we need to verify our three digit (alphanumeric) company code before they will do anything for us.
posted by mjp at 1:47 PM on May 30, 2008

I also think it's not the smoothest move in the world to announce your company's possible incompetence both here and on The Consumerist. Assuming that's your real name in your profile, anyway.
posted by astruc at 4:49 PM on May 30, 2008

Gum: All I said was I emailed consumerist.com. I didn't say I did what majortom suggested. Secondly, I'm just reporting what happened. I never "alleged that any old stranger can call up ADP and have business payroll records diverted to another address." I merely reported what happened. I don't know how they did what they did, nor do I know it wasn't an inside job. I presented the scenario as it happened to me, I think you have a blame the victim attitude about this. If my boss messed up, so be it, but certainly I had nothing to do with it.
posted by idledebonair at 6:20 PM on June 5, 2008

I'm sure that ADP has good training and tight controls on what can't be changed without authorizations and account codes. I'm also sure that their employees screw up occasionally (I hear from clients about Paychex and ADP all the time). It's also remotely possible that someone embezzled the withholding and is covering their tracks. Make sure to get copies of the last few months of paystubs and check the amounts.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:31 AM on July 4, 2008