I got let go for admitting I returned computer items from over 3 years prior. Repurchased but eBay goes back only 3 years and PayPal 2 years. Don't think it would of mattered even if I could get them. If you are called into investigation by internal director, I highly recommend you say nothing and tell them you want to discuss with your legal council. you may be let go any way but at least you can force their hand. They may have got records from the stores without your consent which is better to show if it goes to court.
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This does have the potential to go on indefinitely, depends on how stubborn Fidelity wants to be. This all boils done to one thing. Management made a massive error in judgement to undertake this Witch Hunt. Massive error. Far worse judgement quite frankly then anyone let go due to these reimbursement programs. They had a chance to deal with just one person in the very beginning, but chose to start this Witch Hunt solely to protect the firm from liability while reducing head count.
Now that the roosters are coming home to roost, there are basically two options moving forward: continue with these audits or stop. If they continue, they are going to have to audit EVERYTHING...good luck with that. They have already opened up Pandora's Box. This for Fidelity is the easy road. Head count gets reduced, they find ways to technically fire everyone for cause, life is good for the execs, hell they deserve some extra shares. Take an extra day off around the holidays too. All while completely devastating the internal culture at the firm.
The difficult road is to stop these audits. If they stop, everyone fired previously will look to sue. Why should one person let go this month for a fitness reimbursement be screwed, but then next month someone who has done the same thing is safe because Fidelity stopped the audits. But where does this end? Why a 5 year audit, why not make it 20 years back, why not other programs? Even if they decide to keep going, they are auditing the desert, its impossible to audit everything or there will be no employees left. Also, if they stop they will still need to find a way to reduce headcount.
My recommendation to Fidelity is to save face while the damage is still manageable. Admit that this Witch Hunt was wrong. Flat out admit your mistake. Something that you currently are not encouraging your employees to do as if they admit their mistakes they are fired for cause. In doing this though, they would most likely have to strike a settlement with all those let go prior. To be honest, it may be too late to settle. I am confident the truth will come out at some point, this is just a real life exercise that will show the true character of Fidelity Investments.
Their silence is deafening.
This is far from over, wait until the audit of the student loan repayment program begins. It specifically states that you have to be made payments to... not just having Fidelity pay for you each month.
Still there is no international communication or changes to the policy by Fidelity. Employees are scared and frustrated as they don’t know what they will check next to fire people. Their goal is to find cheapest way to downsize. Frustrated employees means frustrated customers.
There is no emotion to the Witch Hunt, as much as you love Fidelity, if you returned or exchanged anything on these reimbursement benefits, and you didn’t redo paperwork or call someone to reverse the reimbursement, no matter the reason, the likelihood that you are fired for fraud is high (very high). So if you are in this boat, heed the warnings of those fired already.
Thoughts from an active employee on another thread worth reposting:
Fidelity really is a great company to be working. It would be highly admirable if they could take a step back and look at this reasonably and allow employees to come forward in an environment that’s not so hostile. If they allowed employees to come forward explain and repay it, slap on the wrist, or some level of internal discipline it would be much preferred than what’s happening. This is creating unnecessary drama, fear, media attention and litigation expenses. The employees are losing a good company they love and the employer is losing years of investment and development in organically promoted and well trained employees.
I fully understand their viewpoint here, it can be seen as bad employees abusing a gift; however, in other cases this is very much not a big deal. For instance I returned items to one retailer because they were clearly not new (used and returned) so I sent hem back and purchased the exact ones from a different retailer. I’m other instances making a purchase for something like a Fitbit and then returning it doesn’t mean the money didn’t go toward the intended health benefit. Often buying a known qualifying expense and then returning it is the easiest way. What normally happens is your dealing with acclaris incompetence, long holds, differing answers on what is allowed and then you finally make a purchase but you have to wait and find out weeks later if it was qualified when you finally hear back from acclaris through a letter in the mail with some rigid accepted or decline response. And getting a service company to write a letter for you to say you’ve spent money at a gym or yoga studio is equally inconvenient and time consuming and riddled with unknowns whether it is qualified or not. Again you buy a service and then only find out if it’s qualified weeks later? This is supposed to be a benefit, not a termination trap. I love Fidelity and everything they stand for. I wanted to work out my career at this company and promote it to everyone I know. I was and am a motivated and hard working employee, in good standing, not a blemish on my record. And here as I write this I still don’t want to work at another company. I would find it very admirable if Fidelity would approach this with care. Every employee that’s made a mistake and cut a corner on a reimbursement program isn’t a thief. And guaranteed that at this point no employee ever will cut a corner again and they should all have a renewed appreciation of this. I’m pretty discouraged, I’ve always defended Fidelity as the best employer I could ask for and now because of a small mistake to a benefit program I feel like my career is ruined. I would do anything this company asked of me. Is there no compassion for someone in this situation? Fidelity - I hope you see that people love this company and not to group everyone together. I didn’t see this as malicious, not ever. This was innocent. To think that an employee doesn’t have $600 worth of fitness expenses in a year would be nearly impossible. The intent here is to have happy and healthy employees, that is a accomplished with the program, and it is appreciated.
a deeply saddened and highly regarded employee
The blogs are a great idea, put are going to take a lot of effort to gain traction. The media is mostly in bed with Fidelity, until they prove otherwise. The easiest way to make a difference is probably social media.
Throw up something like the following to all your lists on social media (probably takes less than a minute and works for active employees too...unless they want it to continue):
Over 200 employees of Fidelity Investments have had their personal privacy invaded, and as a result, have been fired. This is happening to people that I am close to without any proper media coverage. Please share this link below to help bring an end to this #WitchHunt.
https://www.thelayoff.com/t/SUABhNe
any progress on news outlets or blogs getting wind of this?
There’s no appeal through Fidelity man. They may have sold you that to keep stringing you along. No one survives the #WitchHunt if you are brought in for questioning. You will not get one single thing personalized in writting because they don’t want anything additional to be held against them in court. 30 days from your termination date they will file your U5 and you will see your U4 flag in brokercheck. Go get an attorney.
This just shows you the length Fidelity is willing to go to put up a farce that this process is fair and balanced. Why string people out like this? It’s like ruining ones livelihood isn’t enough...
So did anyone try to "appeal" after they were fired? My employees relations person assigned to me said to email the VP and I did. Its been a couple of weeks and nothing. Im not expecting some sort of reversal but at least an effin confirmation that they read the damn letter I spent time to put together.
Yup, and if you all just sit there and just stare at your computers and phones, Fidelity will continue to trainwreck more careers. Heed our warnings active employees, Fidelity gives 2 sh--s about you. You’ll all sitting ducks. BAND TOGETHER, get the word out!
It’s one thing to fire someone, it’s another to blackball them and prevent them from ever working in the industry again. I came across someone’s brokercheck who had 22 years in the industry and one disclosure relating to the computer reimbursement. Now a person with 22 years of experience just needs to find a new career? This is just pathetic.
The person terminated after reimbursing Fidelity bought and returned a computer in 2016, the last year the program was available. The reimbursement reversal was initiated in early 2018 so it was a long time but still....
Fidelity would rather target salaried employees in their Witch Hunts, saves the company more money. Complete skumbags. There are warm seats in hell for all in management that conjured this up.
So true on timesheet fraud, and this is not a grey area whatsoever. I am personally aware of MANY people who lie on their timesheets as standard practice. This is a blantant violation of company policy on a daily/weekly basis, yet nothing is being done to address it. Let’s hunt down reimbursements instead... complete lunacy.
I implore all of you effected by this, and even active employees that are disgusted by Fidelity’s actions, to band together. Are you an active employee that is pissed that your friends and colleagues have been perp walked out for some complete b---s---? Band together. The most efficient way for us to all band together is to get the word out of what is really transpiring at Fidelity. How do we band together? You share this link on social media, you share it with your friends and family, you proactively contact blogs to write a story with what is going on, sharing this link. Share it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever social media you have. Just share the URL and add a sentence encouraging others to share as well, that’s it. You damn well believe that if this thread starts getting millions of views, that Fidelity will be forced to come to God for what they are doing and have done. BAND TOGETHER PEOPLE! We will not be divided.
Someone mentioned a person was terminated even though they had reimbursed Fidelity? Was it a recent expense or did they call several years later?
I understand why Fidelity is doing this, however they should be going after something bigger.. Time Sheet Fraud. I have heard of several people that use workbrain time sheet that lie to their hearts content, especially team leads and branch associates.
They had a posting for a Senior Investigator in Westlake a few weeks ago, so sounds like they are ramping up efforts. I believe there is a team of 5-6 of them.
I know someone that requested payroll to have their reimbursement taken out but was still terminated 3 months later. I would think the you would have had to payback the reimbursement before any of the audits started because it sounds like if you're flagged by the audit..... goodbye. Fidelity turds.
Abigail Johnson & family may be globalists flying under the radar. They should be exposed.
Can control? They do control the media. Look at that wsj story. No independent thought went into that at all. And it came out days after this thread started getting attention. If any writer just thought “hey what’s the probability all 200 plus people were guilty of fraud? Or, how did they conduct these investigations to even determine that? Or hey it’s kind of odd this is all happening after a vbo and layoffs. Any alternative motives here?”
When you think about it, Fidelity can control the media, to some extent, as they have strong relationships with most major media outlets. But blogs, they have zero control over blog content. The blog poster is not going to call for Fidelity’s permission to post a story. Fidelity is all about having control, which they are about to lose BIG TIME.
https://www.martindale.com/boston/massachusetts/stacey-n-schmidt-2258497-a/
The idea was not for all of us to blog ourselves, its just to email this story to other blogs and then they can write their own story. It's only an email in most cases, that can be copy and pasted for all the other blogs. Really not a big deal.
The troll doesn't like the blog idea, send the story to twice as many blogs as you intended to do. It is a great idea!
Dude, get a job. Who has time to blog and chase down journalists?
haha good one. There is no pimping of blogs. Just 2 links. It is a know fact in journalism that blogging is one of the most powerful tools of disseminating information to a broad audience. All the major papers utilize blogging as well. There is no cash to be made in this, just trying to help with questions on how best to get this communities message to the broader public. That was the topic at hand.
Looks like somebody spent their entire morning pimping blogs. How about you stay focused on the topic at hand instead of advertising external sites. Next you'll be telling us how we can all make $30 an hour working from home!
You are probably ok, who knows though, it all depends on Fidelity's definition of "timely" and when you had it pulled back from your paycheck. Don't go asking your boss and throwing up all kinds of red flags for what may be nothing. If you legit reversed a reimbursement shortly after you returned or exchanged something, you should have nothing to worry about.
Last piece on the power of blogs:
http://www.brandba.se/blog/2016/8/11/blogs-bloggers-blogging-the-role-and-the-power-of-blogs
If you refunded something and then had them take the money out of your paycheck, are you ok?
Great article to read on the power of blogs:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/sep/15/blog.politics
Just write a sentence or two or why you are reaching out, copy and paste the post from last night listing what is going on, and include a copy of this thread link for the owner of the blog to get a more detailed picture on what is going on. It does not have to be perfect, they will write their own stories based on their perspective when they read all of this. The most important thing is to get the word out. Major media outlets have bosses too, of which some will not allow to publish some stories. These blogs will publish things major media outlets sometimes get prevented from publishing, but it will take some work to get the information to them. If multiple people email the same blog, great, they are probably more inclined to write a story. Don't feel like you are duplicating efforts if multiple people contact the same blog.
Any good writers here willing to write up a synopsis so we can all get to circulating it?
Contact the top financial news blogs provided in the link below too. I would start with the news blogs below. They will publish unbiased stories if your reach out. Send a message to each one individually.
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2057116,00.html
For the ones on here commenting how noble and honest Fidelity as a company is.. let’s take a second to remember who suddenly took an interest in raising cattle....... to conveniently save $350,000 a year in taxes.
https://www.financial-planning.com/news/fidelity-wrangles-up-millions-in-taxes-with-texas-cattle-ranch
Get this story in the hands of every personal finance blog to spread the word. From there, bigger news outlets will pick up the story if they are slow to act. Here are the top 50 blogs in a link blow:
https://aaacreditguide.com/top-personal-finance-blogs/
If you go to each blog, and email a synopsis of what is going on (they all have contact info), some will write a post on the real story going on at Fidelity (these blogs are not owned by advertisers, like many major media outlets). Once these sites put up a post, the content is searchable in Google searches based on the content. From there if any major media outlets have not yet picked up the story, they will be late, and it will already be readily available to the public searching on the issue. If you want to get the word out, get to work!
Copied from another post, but valid. In the last week there's been a sharp contrast on what is posted on Glass door vs what was out there a few weeks before. Seems unlikely that is a coincidence:
All affected should post their experience on Glassdoor. Let the people looking at Fidelity know the truth about the company. They will screw you over, care more about profits then employee, and call you a criminal for vague policies.
It maybe too late for you, but help out other people. It is good karma in the end.
Fidelity would rather talk to the press then their own employees. The employees talk to prospective people about your experiences. Fidelity employees rise up and let your opinion be known.
Fidelity is reviewing each Glassdoor comment. Let Fidelity and the world know!!
Timing doesn’t matter. It’s black and white - if they find out you canceled or returned an order, regardless of buying something else, then you will be treated like everyone else and fired.
Does the timing matter? I had the item when I submitted for reimbursement and returned it at a later date.