A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Not Getting Paid ... - FedUp

Posted: Jan 22, 2011

I accepted a part-time job to supplement my regular MT income a few weeks ago from a girl who was advertising here on MTStars. It's been great, fairly easy work and an excellent extra income. I guess I should have known it was too good to be true.

I was expecting payment last week but am told she can't pay me until she gets paid.

Now, who in their right mind would hire people to do their work when they can't pay on a specific date? Why would you hire someone when you may not be able to pay them at all? Who in their right mind would accept such a position if they were told that upfront?

She's still sending me work. How much patience and niceness am I supposed to have about this situation working for free? What would you do?

I wouldn't do another thing until I am paid. - sm

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Waiting for the paycheck could go on forever. Need to notify MTStars mgmt and let them know who this is.

First thing, you should find out pay schedule BEFORE - accepting a job. NM

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x

Send a bill via certified mail with your contract stamped by notary public. - Hayseed

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Documentation is your friend. Document all phone calls and e-mails with the date, time, and if you spoke directly to this person or left a message.

How many days does your contract say she has until she has to pay you for services rendered? That is what you need to go by.

Use words like breech of contract, small claims court, and then follow it up with a call to an attorney. Do not do any more work unless you are legally bound to for some reason.

Not getting paid - ceeejaay

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This happened to me in the past. I accepted a position for a great part time account. Good pay, easy dictation. It was wonderful. She was local to me. I did not find the job on this board. I would be told my check was going out and would not receive it for a couple of weeks. Or, I would have to email her and ask her where my pay was because she had already told me that she sent it, but I never received it. This went on for a few months, but gradually I started decreasing my work for her and now I don't do anything for her at all anymore. It's a stinky situation. The account was great. I miss the work, but the bottom line is we work to get paid, not just because, and when you do the work you expect to be paid in a timely fashion. I would be extremely hesitant to type one more key for her if you believe you may never receive your pay. Good luck...its not an easy situation.

Cee

It could really be very lucrative - FedUp

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to run a scam like that. Hire people off the Internet, out of state, have them work for you a month, keep the money and never pay them. You could run ads over and over and hire all kinds of people, never meaning to pay them, and all the while they're sitting around waiting for the money.

Lesson learned on my part for the future and hopefully someone else too.

If you are an IC who went out and got the account - ICManiac

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and then hired someone to do the work, then you have a responsibility to pay the subcontractor on time.

In your case, the contract is with the IC, not with the account. She should be prepared to pay you on a schedule regardless of when the account pays. If you started without a schedule of when to expect pay, you should talk with her now about that and resolve never to do that again.

So what to do about your situation? You need to pick up the phone and have an indepth talk about things with the person who should be paying you. Ask her if there is a date when you can expect payment and what the payment would be for (2 weeks, semimonthly, begin and end dates). If she tells you she can't give you a date, you don't need to be offensive, but you can tell her this wasn't what you expected. (you can be understanding of her situation while being able to maintain boundaries). Listen to what she has to say. If, for example, she can promise to pay you with the next 2 weeks for everything she owes you from when you started to at least the day of your talk, then you can decide if you will or won't keep working until that pay is received. If that date comes and goes without getting a payment or hearing from her, continue taking the work, but put it on hold until something happens on her end.

Sometimes things really do just happen with a client being late when they are not usually late. It could be this is her situation, but since you don't know her level of honesty, you can't know what to believe.

I've had a client who forgot to send me his last week's work before going out of the country on vacation. I got the work 3 weeks late, did it as stat and returned it, then sent an invoice for the end of that billing cycle. It didn't get paid for 2 weeks (usually paid same day or at the latest 3 days).

What I didn't know was that the physician had broken his writing hand. He continued to see patients, but when he got home, his hand hurt and he didn't want to even get near the computer to transfer the funds into my account. Of course since he didn't let me know until after the fact and we don't see each other, I had no way of knowing his situation. He finally said something in a dictation about having had surgery the night before and to allow for some lack of clarity in his dictation. He is a great account, normally pays very promptly (no check to wait on, transfer of funds from his bank to mine usually same day as I email him an invoice), so I never complained or got upset. I never slowed down on returning his work.

If I had a sub to pay, though, I would have had to dip into my own money to pay her/him because that is taking care of my agreement with her/him.

You don't really know for sure that this is a scam without more information. There could be extenuating circumstances like I described, she could be a bad business person, or yes she could be a scammer; but, you need more information.

OTOH, I worked for an MTSO with a reputation of delayed payment. When I expected my first paycheck and didn't get it, I kept accepting work and not completing it. Once I got my check, I stopped working for the company altogether. The office was very disorganized and I was able to tell that life with this MTSO would always be this way. They felt I trick them by taking work without returning it, but I calmly stated I wasn't the one who failed to pay on a timely basis and felt I was protecting myself while waiting to get paid. About a month later, the owner sent me a letter of apology.

I hope this works out for you. If you do get stiffed, I hope you will watch out for further ads on this site and place a nice response making yourself available to anyone who would like to know what happened to you.

FedUp - OldPro

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You DID get a signed contract or memorandum of understanding before starting, didn't you? If not, why not? Who in their right mind would go to work without a business-like contract in place? This is a business; don't do another line for her until her account is brought current and you have a contract in place. And, dare I say, I don't think she is a girl--I would bet that she is probably a woman. Yes, it DOES matter how we view these things. We all need to remember that we are in business (even if we are like one MT I met whose husband made oodles of money and she only worked as an MT to support her high-powered race car, which was her hobby). Whatever our circumstances, we need to approach business in a business-like way. Just because it is sometimes done from one's home does not mean it should not still have the formalities and legalities of a business. I surely would never work for such a person again. One practical thing that might help you for future arrangements would be to contact SCORE or the SBA and take a basic class in business 101. They can offer all kinds of valuable tips to help you (such as the necessity of contracts and how to go about collection if needed) and these classes are generaly free. I do hope you get your money. Please don't enable this woman's bad behavior by doing any more work for her.

Not getting paid - This is the culture of this industry

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The stories like yours are abundant in this industry. They do it because we the workers let them get away with it. DON'T. Hold her accountable either using the sage advice given below or think up your own. There are a multitude of ways to hold the multitudes who don't pay accountable. More importantly, imagine if all who have experienced not getting paid at all or being paid late networked and shared the specifics of how it went down and what they did - NO LAWYERS NEEDED GUARANTEED.

I'm starting to worry about pay too - bleedingears

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We're giving them the benefit of the doubt, but we just got a new contract saying they can take up to 30 days to pay ICs. We're still on the old contract, and despite the storm, we should have been paid by now. We'll see. But one never knows with a new company what really goes on behind the scenes, despite what is in the contract.

it is true that everything in Atlanta was shut down for a week - ICManiac

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and no one went anywhere that week ending Friday 1/14. Then Monday was a holiday so banks were closed.

WMX is a large enough company that for something like this, surely they notified you of a new pay date?

I don't see this as being in the category as the OP, IMHO. This wasn't a case of having no funds to pay. It was a logistics issue where there were no bodies in the office or due to power outages to process the paperwork due to a freak storm.

They've been so disorganized with - everything else

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we're not sure. Never had a problem due to weather before with a small agency nor a large one. Do they not utilize the technology available for expediting payroll?

I agree - mt2

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We're in the 21st century here. There is no reason not to pay, everything done electronically, probably most of these people work at home themselves. WMX is not a small company, they should know better.

As far as the OP is concerned, I wouldn't do any more work for this person. I bet she has no intention of paying you. Ran across this with a 1-person company in Iowa. I was supposed to do her overflow. I would e-mail and e-mail for my check and then one day, an e-mail was sent back saying she was filing Chapter 11 and she would be paying nobody. There was no more contact at all.

In 14 years with 6 employers I've never been paid late. NM - Nonsense.

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x

good for you, NoSense. But it DOES happen, depends on the MTSO. - happend to me once.

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Once? The statement was "a culture" of not paying. - NM

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I'm not going to argue with you - it's on the company board all the time. - been going on for years, and we warn each other.NM

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Yes, but sensible evaluation is required. Culture of - nonpay for this industry alone is nonsense.NM

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x

Fedup, this arrangement isn't unusual for small - anon

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operations. It of course should have been clearly understood by you in the beginning, but there's no reason not to still think is an excellent second income. If patience and niceness are frequently in as short supply as her bank balance apparently is, though, then by all means get paid and cut the connection.

Not getting paid - Lee

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There is no excuse for not paying you. She contracted with the client and you contracted with her. Her obligation is with you regardless of whether she has been paid or not. This person should be willing to eat beans before she neglects her obligations to those who butter her bread for her. This really is disgusting. Reminds me of a pickpocket. Personally I think she needs a good spanking, somethig her mother shoud have done to raise her right. Shame on her and others just like her.

This just isnt true - seriously

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This is where a CONTRACT eliminates all this guess work.

But an MTSO doesn't have an obligation to go w/o food to pay a contractor! LOL!

As was said, oftentimes, services pay their contractors when the client pays them. But this should have been discussed WELL ahead of ONE keystroke being executed and should have been IN WRITING between both parties.

If you're a contractor, there's no law or rule that says you get paid every 2 weeks or every week. In fact, as a contractor it's up to YOU to negotiate with the CLIENT (in this case the MTSO) when payment will be made. If you didn't, then whining about it now is useless.

Yes, in another field I was paid by the shop I contracted for - when they were paid. This is very common.

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I was owed payment even if they were stiffed, but time to pay me was never specified because I picked up jobs in the office and he always wrote out a check for whatever was owed then. No contract but none needed.

I and everyone else also "bought" supplies and services from a local photo processing shop without paying each time, just paying up now and then when I was paid. Also without contract. None needed.

Long way of saying, paying subs when paid oneself is normal but can be formal or informal. None of the couple dozen people in my system were ever burned, but it took time to build up justification for the trust we extended. But we all did extend that initial trust and paid it back by being trustworthy ourselves.

Agree, had a MTSO that jerked us all around - sm -

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first was push back the pay date a few days, then would find excuses not to pay that day, would always process after 2pm or late at night the payments, checks would then take another 2 days to be sent after that. You'd end having two weeks between payments in the end as this never deviated. I eventually left but I hear they are still doing it that way, though per the contract they have you sign they are in violation of their own payment terms. But on the bright side I did get paid, just not exactly when I was supposed to (week late on average), still was highly annoying when trying to pay bills or something unexpected happened.

Understand your feelings 100% - passing thru

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The same thing happened to me a while back! VERY frustrating!! Hang in there, it took me some time BUT I eventually did get paid. Best of luck to you!

What I did.... - sm

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This was a long time ago when I was still picking up tapes, but I was constantly begging for my pay and the MTSO was behind about $1,200, which at the time was make or break me money. She kept telling me the same thing, I can't get paid until she gets paid. Meanwhile, every day I would go to pick up work and she was getting a new car, having a hot tub installed, etc. Finally, I picked up a bunch of backlog tapes and told her that if I did not get my money, she would not get her tapes back and I was not typing them. Miraculously, she was able come up with all my money the next day. I gave her back the tapes (untyped) and never worked for her again. Apparently she did not want to have to go the MD and say she lost the tapes.

She's not standing there with a gun at your head is she? - Seriously

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Are you a contractor?

What does your contract that you submitted to her say about when you will be paid?

Why are you still working if you think you will not be paid?

I't just insane that some of the MTs on here seem to think they have absolutely no element of control in their lives.

I worked for a small company and never got paid - Crabby

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from her. When I ran my shop, I made sure I had money in the bank or a line of credit to pay my guys. I doubt I will ever work for another small company since getting burned. She claimed it was because we weren't meeting production of at least 1,000 lines per day. Well how can you meet production when there were too many MTs and not enough work? We were told the line count will pick up, etc, but it never did. She didn't even have the guts to tell us we lost the job until I tried to log on and my logons were canceled. It was basically too bad, so sad. So now, its live and learn because she will never pay me for the work that was done. She claimed she had to get the line count from the company and that was the last I heard even after several attempts to contact her. Thanks, but I'll stay with the nationals.

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