New development to this saga ...

On the day I was terminated, Wednesday, January 30, my boss said I would be paid for the rest of the week. I then submitted my mileage log to him and he helped me get my things to my car, and said "no hard feelings?" I said no, of course not. Well, I guess that's changed!

I called the office the next day to pick up my final paychecks, and the receptionist told me that my boss said my mileage check would be mailed to me.

I emailed him on Thursday, February 7, to inquire about when I might receive the check. This was my email to him:

"Just a quick question - do you have any guesstimate as to when I can be expecting the mileage reimbursement check to be coming in? Would [the A/P employee] be processing that?

Thank you for your time!"

He responded today with:

"In consideration that we paid you for days not worked and the inconvenience of this whole situation, do you really want to burden me with any more of your requests. Don't answer that. Let's just severe our future communication . I do not expect a response email and/or any more inquiries on what you believe you are owed. Truthfully we should be ashamed of yourself. If you have a grievance, take it up with [the recruiter]; we paid them a $8,000.00 fee for and something we did
not get. They are more in a position to share the wealth.

Good luck with your business venture. Get inspired? Please ...."

"Get inspired" is the tag line for my home-based business, I sent the email from my home account. As you can see, I had sent a perfectly civil email and was responded to very nastily.

He's completely backpedaling on what he had told me. I never asked to be paid out for the rest of the week, he offered that on his part. I was never told that my mileage reimbursement would be negated. And I think if insurance was promised to me, they should deliver.

I don't have anything in writing though, and didn't think to take a copy of my mileage log when I left that day. I am pretty sure it was 675 miles, but I would settle for 650 because I know it was at least that.

There was one other person in the room when all this went down. Also the receptionist did tell me that my former boss said the mileage check would be mailed to me.

Can they be subpoenaed to appear in small claims court? I know they work for the employer so they probably don't want to tell the truth but if they lie at least they'd be doing it under oath.

I really would love to hire a lawyer, even if a lawyer needs to take all the money I would have gotten from them. I just really don't want to take this lying down - what they are doing to me isn't right. And the whole thing about the fee they paid to hire me - well, I know for a fact the recruiter has a 100% money back guarantee - they'll get their fee back.