FAQ

WHAT IS CHARGEBACKCONSULTANT.COM?

We are a California consulting firm that specializes in a niche market that assists corporate clients with identifying possible legal exposure in various employee compensation plans that feature a chargeback of paid earnings.

What does a Chargebackconsultant.com COMPENSATION audit consist of?

A complete review of your compensation plan that will identify every element that could be a multi million dollar legal exposure due to a chargeback of employee wages or commissions. We then provide a complete written report that will cite all supporting California labor code statutory provisions, case law and contractual inequities that could give your company legal exposure. This will allow your in house policy makers to adjust your compensation plan accordingly.

EVERYBODY DOES THEM, SO WHY ARE CHARGEBACKS ILLEGAL?

They always have been illegal. They violate existing California labor code provisions that have been employee rights since the early part of the last century. Employees have only recently started asserting their rights in this area. While the legal explanation is verbose, the best analogy is: There are many times in Law where the masses are in violation until somebody does something about it. Like, Elliot Spitzer, the Attorney General in New York, who reformed the entire stock trading and mutual fund industries from abusive practices.

In terms of the wide spread abuse of the California labor code in regards to the illegal deduction, rebate and “chargeback” of employees earnings. The reason why this area of the labor code has failed to have been properly policed in the past 60 years the finger can be pointed squarely at: The California Department of Labor, California Attorney General, and the Department of Justice for having failed to properly make examples out of companies involved in this type of illegal transaction and allowing the violation to run rampant for over half a century in the illicit skimming of millions upon millions of dollars from hard working California employees paychecks over the years.

Thus, in this unique circumstance private citizens (whistleblowers) and the California Plaintiffs bar have been forced to “right the wrong” or “fix what’s broken.” Through the use of representative class action, tenacity, sheer determination and years of dedicated legal work.

WE CHARGEBACK OUR EMPLOYEES IN CALIFORNIA, WHAT IS OUR CURRENT LEGAL EXPOSURE?

Click here for a FREE QUOTE

WHY DO CORPORATIONS SPEND SO MUCH MONEY IN DEFENDING THESE CASES?

Chargeback policies are big money makers for corporations and they fight fiercely to defend them. Many corporate defense teams teach their clients not to settle but to fight the employees. This is surprisingly dumb logic, as they are not considering the cost of billable hours, restitution, attorney fees for opposing counsel, court costs, penalties, ect. Then again, any person that walks into a corporate defense firms marble floored high rise office, featuring opulent paintings and artifacts, with the exceptional “super model” good looks receptionist, and really good reception room magazines; one quickly comes to the inescapable conclusion “How the hell do they afford all this stuff?” Answer: By finding naive and gullible deep-pocketed clients that buy into the defense mantra, “If you haven’t paid anything, you haven’t lost anything.” (By paying they mean your employees of course, the quarterly refill of the retainer accounts is just a formality for the next 3-4 years to make the mantra work. Mantra maintenance.)

A corporation that is caught violating the law should “cut its losses” and settle; only corporate arrogance, greedy legal defense teams and unethical executives protract legal battles of this nature. The underlying mentality is: Unless a court forces them to stop they will happily violate the rights of unwitting employees and torture the employees with a drawn out court process for having the nerve to assert their legal rights. They try to drag the court battle out until the plaintiffs run out of money or give up (this is commonly referred to as a “scorched-earth litigation defense tactic”, which tries to drain the plaintiffs financially and emotionally by dragging the battle out by using every delaying tactic known and burning everything in it’s path.)

However, this defense concept does not work effectively against employee class action battles, it only lines the pockets of your corporate defense counsel with exorbitant billable hour fees for years and years, and when it’s over you are still on the hook to payback the employees, their attorneys, state penalties and court costs, should they prevail. Not to mention the bad public relations it causes fighting your employees in a huge public battle. Your employees can wield the mighty Excalibur sword of representative class action against any “scorched-earth policy” you have, to slice and burn your corporate checking account to the ground with ease.

WHY SHOULD YOU USE CHARGEBACK CONSULTANT?

We are cost effective: Simple as that.

Corporation defense attorneys average $250/hr in billable hours**, this can become very expensive when they are auditing your compensation plan for legal defects. Chargebackconsultant.com works on a flat rate and has prior knowledge in this specific area of law, thus we don't need to charge you for legal research. By operating on a flat rate you have contained your costs and we can zero in on any contractual defects without the worry of adding to the retainer fund.

Your HR department is not trained to identify this new area of compliance

We suggest having Chargebackconsultant.com audit your compensation plan and provide you with an assessment and then run it by your "in-house" attorneys once the areas of exposure have been identified so they can help in compliance. We don't want to compete with your current counsel; we want to integrate our services along with theirs to provide a solution. Working in conjunction with current legal staff we can help dramatically cut the cost in moving into chargeback compliance.

WHAT MAKES YOU THE EXPERTS IN THIS NEW AREA OF LAW?

Our owner/founder has personally spent close to half a decade fighting these types of battles hands-on in the California courts against multi million dollar corporations and assisted the Plaintiffs bar in designing a nearly indefensible argument for chargeback labor abuses. We are very familiar with all supporting case law, how these arguments are won and lost in the legal system, and aware of the areas of exposure. The same expertise is now being made available to corporations for compliance measures through Chargebackconsultant.com

DOES ANY OTHER CONSULTING FIRM OFFER THIS SERVICE?

Not that we know of yet.

DO YOU PARTNER WITH OTHER BUSINESSES ON THIS ISSUE?

Yes we do. Whether you are a law firm, compensation consultant, human resource consultant or from any of the varied compliance professions. We can handle your outsourcing needs for this issue and offer generous flat rate pricing for services; this allows a profitable margin for considerable mark-up. We also allow co-branding of our services so our presence remains transparent to any of your audit operations while your client remains completely satisfied. We also will negotiate any expedited orders to process faster so you can deliver your audit to your client on schedule.

HOW DO WE GET STARTED?

We have made it very easy. Fill out this short form and you will be contacted in 24-48 hours, next business day: REQUEST FREE QUOTE

SPECIAL NOTE: Beginning Jan 1, 2005 in order to properly serve our clients, New case intake will be limited to only 20 new cases per month, this will occur on a first come first served basis for the entire state of California. Advance client bookings are available up to 90 days. Expedited cases are negotiable.

** Based on a study released (7/8/03) by Altman Weil, Inc., a leading legal consulting firm. The Press release of this study is available in the documents section of our website.