For the last FOUR years my DH has worked self-employed, but one of his major sources of income was through a contract job with another man.

This "man" has never seemingly been successful in bringing in respectable amounts of commissions, UNTIL, my husband worked his butt off to build up two very lucrative accounts. The greedy-cheating-man, this Monday, "released" my husband from his contract. Read:fired, I guess, saying that "he didn't build enough new business." Never mind that DH booked 1.8 million dollars in sales THIS YEAR ALONE. This jerk has been sitting back earning about $30 to $40 thousand dollars for the last couple of years for doing NOTHING.

I'm guessing he thinks he will just still continue to sit back and DO NOTHING, and collect the entire commissions. What he doesn't realize is that my husband worked, traveled, engineered, expedited, and worked to collect commissions owed..much of which should have been done by the greedy-cheating-man.

We are preparing to sue for the already earned but not yet paid commission due, if he doesn't come forth with payment promptly.

We will likely have to, because we have caught him hiding DH's sales(read $$$ commissions), because DH was kept out of the record keeping loop.

HERE's the good part:

DH's "discontinued contract" has NO NON-COMPETE clause!!!!!!!!!!!!!   ---and--- the greedy-cheating-man is not well liked by the customers DH has been serving. In a matter of 6-8 months, the companies the cheater has contracts with can discontinue his contract, and keep all the commissions! The companies in question like DH and way he works, and all are willing to work with him in near future!!

I guess this is a story about biting (completely off) the hand that has been feeding you.

Luckily, due to our frugal ways, we aren't in too bad a position, we can wait this out, and will likely prevail.

Thanks for listening.

Oh!  Jane, My Darling brother had something like this happen back 5 years ago or so.  The defendant had shielded all of his assets, so it wasn't possible to enforce  the judgment.  I hope & pray that your suit is more successful.  Yours in Him, Deb

 Exactly what we are worrying about, deborahmichelle. The guy's business is incorporated, so he could easily have done something like you have mentioned. We have to try, and we have to remember the positives:

DH has made A LOT of good business connections, the manufacturers he represented for sales were very sorry to see this happen, and couldn't understand why.

The customers involved has always counted on him to look out for their interests and get them the product/equipment when they needed it. Some refuse to work directly day-to-day with the "cheater."

When the manufacturers drop "cheaters" contracts, there is nothing to stop DH from taking them on as DIRECT clients through his business. He can already represent them with different clients and customers...just not the 2 really good ones had. Not having a non-compete clause is wonderful.

DH does have his own clients, so we have that business to count on.

We have saved and saved while things were good....kind of expected this about 3 months ago, so we don't have to panic about money. Can't go nuts either...frugality never takes a vacation...

Thanks for your response, deb, it means a lot to have your advice!!

Jane_b:

For the last FOUR years my DH has worked self-employed, but one of his major sources of income was through a contract job with another man.

This "man" has never seemingly been successful in bringing in respectable amounts of commissions, UNTIL, my husband worked his butt off to build up two very lucrative accounts. The greedy-cheating-man, this Monday, "released" my husband from his contract. Read:fired, I guess, saying that "he didn't build enough new business." Never mind that DH booked 1.8 million dollars in sales THIS YEAR ALONE. This jerk has been sitting back earning about $30 to $40 thousand dollars for the last couple of years for doing NOTHING.

Is there any chance you could tell us what line of work your husband is in?

He is a manufacturer's sales representative and industrial process consultant.

For anyone not familiar with such...say an industrial customer needs some sort of widget, part, or gadget and doesn't know how to find it or how to have it made, DH contacts the clients he reps and has one or more of them work together to get the wanted items made for the customer. His pay is solely a percentage of the sales paid by the manufacturer selling to the customer. It can vary from 2% to 20% depending on the volume and cost of the item in question.

Update:

Greedy-cheating guy is in breach of his contract on 3 counts!!!...so far. Things are looking

good, even if we don't get the money owed us, this information could potentially decimate

his little game he has going. We have 2 prior people who have worked as independent contractors for him who report he same issues. They didn't have as much at risk, so handled him in different ways (not requiring attorneys and judges.)

This person has always prided himself on his "frugality...his faith...his patriotism...his family

togetherness."  Not sure yet whether he is just nuts, confused, criminal, or some combination of all of the above.

I'm frugal, but have never considered breach of contract,deliberate non-payment of debts owed, and downright cheating/stealing as "frugality."

Things will be cranking up, legally speaking, next week. Until this thing is completely sorted out, I won't post again until I can report on the final outcome.

It would be interesting to have a thread on how frequently people have been cheated by employers to keep "businesses?" afloat.

There is one company in our town that has been collecting state, fed, FICA, and health insurance premiums from payroll checks(over 6 months)...and NEVER paying the monies to the US, state govt. or the insurance company. They've been using the money to keep the company cash flow afloat. All has come to light now, and they are in some, shall we say...deep doodoo. Do you ever check to see if your payroll deductions actually get to where they are supposed to be...before its too late?