This payroll solution may be coming to a business near you some day soon! The other day my son told me about a friend of his. She is a few credits shy of her degree. I guess she’s had trouble getting the foreign language credit completed. She still has to pay her bills and found a job at Wendy’s near Tinley Park in Illinois. When she received her first pay check, well it wasn’t a check. She had to sign a paper in order to be hired that would allow them to pay her with an ADP total pay card. Now you’re probably wondering what in the hell that could be, as I was. It’s a credit card. The company pays her by loading up a credit card. You know a card that costs money to get cash from. It goes directly onto a Visa or MasterCard. Of course this indoctrination video programs people to see the beauty of payroll cards without the pitfalls:
It shows how you can get cash at almost any ATM machine but it fails to tell about the fees involved with such a transaction. It’s amazing how ignorant they make these people appear. It also fails to let them know all of the real life rules that come with the card.
http://www.walletpop.com/2010/12/17/the-risks-and-rewards-of-payroll-cards/
Now, after the initial confusion you might be thinking what is wrong with that? It appears that every time you want cash, it costs money. Every time you want to check and see how much you have, it costs fifty cents. The people getting these cards are obviously at the low end of the food chain. They don’t have a voice. They are the voiceless, the little guys, that most people don’t give much thought to when they’re being waited on by them. While Congress is busy protecting the rights of the “super rich” these little guys are out trying to figure out how to get their money.
Josh’s friend can’t get her money that is supposedly loaded on the card. When she contacts ADP they tell her that her employer hasn’t activated her card yet. Essentially they haven’t “enrolled” her yet. If she had been on the card, she would be charged by the minute to talk to them. Keep in mind that she has been working for them for a few weeks now. She started on November 14th and hasn’t received any money yet from her employer. Would any of us want to work for nothing for weeks on end without getting our pay? Probably not! Wendy’s corporate says it saves them money. I suppose it would with no paper trail and no one to come to the rescue of the little guy and make sure these people are paid on time and get what is their just due. Now you might think, well she signed the paper. Most of us will sign whatever the employer wants when we are trying to get a job. That is something I am sure the corporations rely on. Times are tough for jobs. If you want to work, just be aware this may be coming to a company where you are looking for a job.
This is from the ADP website:
ADP TotalPay Card is a convenient paperless payroll solution that allows employees, with a bank account or without, to have their funds electronically loaded onto their own Visa®-branded debit card.
- Increase security and reduce exposure to check loss and fraud – By eliminating paper checks and the associated distribution process, security risks are significantly reduced and concerns over traditional paper checks, that can be lost, stolen or altered are diminished.
- Save time and cost, and enjoy more convenience – There is no escheatment required by the employer. As your single-source vendor, ADP acts as a one-stop service for reversals, deletions and returns, eliminating the need for multiple-source coordination and reducing administrative tasks.
- Increase employee satisfaction and improve productivity – Employees are not required to have a checking account or obtain a credit approval to receive an ADP TotalPay Card. This convenient paperless option gives your employees immediate access to their wages on payday.
Your employees also have the choice of having full or partial pay loaded on their card, offering more choices and flexibility. With ADP TotalPay Card, your employees can shop at retailers worldwide or online anywhere Visa debit is accepted. They also have surcharge-free access to their money at 32,000 AllpointTM ATMs nationwide.
It’s hard to understand how this got started. On the website there are links showing how the companies can get federal and state tax credits for hiring new employees. This is some kind of new game that some corporations are playing and it is not leaving the countless number of their employees happy at all. You will notice it mentions employee satisfaction which is really a myth. All you have to do is type in “ADP total pay card ripoff” in Google and you will come across pages and pages of unhappy employees. Something needs to be done to help these people collect their money and not be robbed by the corporations by being nickel and dimed to death with fees for withdrawing their own cash. Go to this link and just read some of these real life stories from people.
I downloaded the brochure targeted for businesses from ADP. I want you to notice one very important detail that the employee might not know.
http://totalpay.adpsolutions.net/docs/TotalPayBrochure.pdf
It appears that the company will receive automatic refunds for “uncashed” items older than 180 days. That to me is unbelievable. No wonder these corporations like this method of payment! The money goes back to the employer? The employee doesn’t just get a check sent to them in the mail? Are you kidding me? So if you lose the card or you die or something happens that you some how forget to get all of your cash out, then the money goes back to your employer. I’m sure that’s where the people would want their money to go.
I am outraged that something isn’t being done about this. To me it seems like another way to rip off the little guy. I’m going to contact my representative and senators. I called Senator Levin but his box is full. Since it is so close to the holidays, the politicians are all getting ready to go home, so it may not be useful to contact them until after the holidays. However, I think all of us should do everything we can to help make this new method of payment more equitable for the employee. I am putting links here for anyone so inclined to contact their representative or senators. You may also inquire into your own state legislatures to see if this is happening in your state. It appears to be global. In my research I see this has been going on in Europe for quite some time.
You can contact your federal political representatives here to let them know that some people are having trouble accessing their money through this payment method:
Happy holidays everyone but don’t forget about the little guys that might be serving you at Wendy’s or Applebee’s or some place else that have no real representation.
ADP is Automatic Data Processing, Inc. If you watch this video you will think they are the best place to work.
Maybe they are, but what ADP is doing for other corporations though these payroll credit cards troubles me to say the least.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr_WKaUHyZs