I worked as a 100% commission sales rep for small company for which I brought in millions of $$ in sales volume annually (I was there 5 years). The owner used the company as a personal ATM and frequently got in cash flow crunches which resulted in a myriad of negative consequences - not the least of which being I was falling further and further behind in unpaid commissions the last year I was there. In April 2007 I was set to have a $1 sales volume month (my biggest ever), and on March 31 I was terminated without notice and the reason when asked was, "I cannot afford you anymore." How can you not afford a 100% commissioned salesperson? The real reason was greed and ego.

Flash forward - I filed a lawsuit in Superior Court and it has been vascillating in nonsense ever since. The legal system is an endless web of time wasting activities and has nothing to do with "right and wrong." Meanwhile, I am paying an attorney $350 an hour to get nowhere in an expensive hurry. What blows me away is that someone could go into 7-Eleven and steal $20 and it's a felony but an employer stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from an employee is apparently not a problem. Please advise...

Hello so:

What's to advise? You've got a lawyer. He's doing his thing. Yes, it's long and expensive and you might not win, and you might not collect EVEN if you do win... Ok. Most suits take three years or longer to wend their way through the system.

That's our system. Yeah, I wish the wheels of justice moved a bit faster, too.

excon

PS> Do you want to hear where YOU screwed up?? No you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I would have given my boss maybe an extra week to make good on my commissions – no more.

You gave your boss, what, years??

Get a new attorney. The issue here is that while you may think this is theft its actually a civil not a criminal matter. Maybe if you approach it as a criminal matter, you might get faster results. This means getting a district attorney to prosecute the case.

Well I am not going to be as nice, why in the world did you allow yourself into that situation? If after the first check, then a second check, you get resumes out and go to work for another company in the same field.

I find it a little hard to really fell that bad for someone who keep working knowing that the owner was not doing good book keeping and was shorting their check all along.

I would feel sorry for the first couple checks, but after that, if you did not see it coming, you were just not wanting to.

Is the justice system fair, of course not, I do hope you have copies of everything to prove all the commissions. But short of letting an attorney do their thing, you move on, someone able to sell that good should have no issue back at it.

By the well, what were you selling?

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Originally Posted by socalten

I worked as a 100% commission sales rep for small company for which I brought in millions of $$ in sales volume annually (I was there 5 years). The owner used the company as a personal ATM machine and frequently got in cash flow crunches which resulted in a myraid of negative consequences - not the least of which being I was falling further and further behind in unpaid commissions the last year I was there. In April 2007 I was set to have a $1 sales volume month (my biggest ever), and on March 31 I was terminated without notice and the reason when asked was, "I cannot afford you anymore." How can you not afford a 100% commissioned salesperson? The real reason was greed and ego.

Flash forward - I filed a lawsuit in Superior Court and it has been vascillating in nonsense ever since. The legal system is an endless web of time wasting activites and has nothing to do with "right and wrong." Meanwhile, I am paying an attorney $350 an hour to get nowhere in an expensive hurry. What blows me away is that someone could go into 7-Eleven and steal $20 and it's a felony but an employer stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from an employee is apparently not a problem. Please advise...

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Too late for this thought but the day I found out the company was being used as a personal ATM I would have been packing my stuff!

How did ego enter into this? Greed I understand!

And it's a side issue BUT as far as the legal system, well, it pays MY bills but that being said I am always amused that Attorneys are among the slowest paying people in the World - with apologies to Lisa (I think), "our" resident real estate expert. Don't pay them and you can represent yourself; they don't pay you... lots of luck.

The owner could not afford to pay you... and his lame excuse of you were too expensive to keep is truly hilarious. When any employer uses a business as a personal ATM it can only result in them going down the toilet in a big hurry.

Go to your attorney and see what exactly has been done on paper in this suit. Then if what he says to you does not make any sense, or you do not like, take your file and get another attorney to finish this case for you. At $350 an hour he's a pricey guy who should have had something happen by now. Has it been set down for trial yet?

Great example of screwing the system of a workforce----Enron