Employer threatening law suit

[hiserman1]

my wifes previous employer has there attorney contacting us threatening to sue us for a total of 541 dollars. My wife was the secertary for this company and was the contact person/receiver for an account threw LTD (a mail order company). Several employees including my wife regularly ordered merchandise from this company. My wife because she was the secertary was the one to receive the merchandise and invoice statements. It was an open account and my wife would take the money from the other persons and pay the bill, often it went several months unpaid. Upon self termination of her employment she told her boss the balance of the acct and that 123.00 dollars was purchases she had made. She told her boss she would send in a check for the 123.00, he boss simply said thats fine. Two days later an attorney representing her previous employer contacted us and stated if we didn't pay the full balance they would take us to small claims court. The attorney refuses to listen to my wife and simply hangs up after demanding full payment with in xxx amt of days or we will be sued. The acct is in the companies name with her being the contact person. Any advise on what i should do would be great. thanks chris in KY

 

[JETX]

First, with the type of action you are describing, are you sure that the person contacting you is an attorney as claimed??? It doesn't sound like he is.

Second, your wife really made herself responsible for the account when she was accepting orders from others without collecting the funds. Since your wife put herself in the middle, she is responsible for the entire amount owed. She basically used the company name (account) to purchase personal items for herself and others in the office.

She needs to pay the correct amount in full to the company (keep receipts) and then she needs to try to recover her funds from each of the people that she accepted orders for.

Personally, I am a little surprised that there aren't thoughts of charging her with theft (in billing personal items to the company).

 

[hiserman1]

The acct in question was an exsisting account, that my wife was given responsiblity of as part of her job. Even her boss was purchasing through this account.


thanks

chris