I just read the article "Can my employer steal my 401K". I have a similar situation that I need you expert advice on. I was laid off on May 15. My contribution to my 401k was $930.00 twice a month or $1860.00/month. My employer is suppose to contribute 3% of my salary or $124.00 twice a month. Since Jan. 1 2008, he has only put $2790 of my money into my 401k and $744.00 of matching into my 401k account. This leaves my account $5384.45 short, $5079.22 of mine and $305.23 of the matching. My 401k account is 100% guaranteed interest, which means I'm loosing money everyday my account is short.
The company has financial problems, but they have not gone bankrupt. They are still in business and shipping product to customers with a few employees.
In your article you said that this is stealing and "Call the Sheriff". Were you serious? If I do that, all the employees still there will be out of work and the business will fold! Is there some scare tactic I can throw at him showing him a reference to a law or federal ruling and what could happen if he doesn't put my money in my account and what would happen if I take drastic action?
In addition to all that. In May I went to get a prescription at CVS. They told me I had no insurance. I showed them my insurance card and they said sorry, it's been canceled. I find out that I've been paying $320 a month for medical and $28 for dental and he's never paid the insurance premium since March. So any bills I rang up since March 1st were not covered even though money was deducted from my pay check. Talk about getting smacked in the face twice!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Name Withheld (for obvious reasons)
Sorry to hear about your layoff and benefit challenges. It would seem that you have an employer who is using your money (401k contributions and insurance deductions) to pay the company bills. That is illegal. If you don't contact the district attorney it's likely that someone else will. In any case, the employer should be challenged. You don't need scare tactics. It's a simple fact that they're making deductions that are meant for your account. To divert them to any other purpose is fraud and/or theft.
I understand that you don't want to force them into bankruptcy and want to protect your friends' jobs. But the longer this goes on the more money that they'll potentially lose. So shining some light onto the subject is really helping your friends.
It's important for the business owners to make the contributions BEFORE they go out of business. You'll probably get what you contributed in a bankruptcy situation, but it might not be pretty. You might have to wait for the court system to get your money.
Hope that it works out well for you.
Gary
note: much more on 401k plans here
