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GM suing workers for $450,000 over employee discount fraud

 
5 2,006 views Sep 1, 2008
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UAW launches first strike against GM since 1970

UAW launches first strike against GM since 1970

On August 20, General Motors began a highly publicized campaign expanding its employee discount program to the public at large.

Around the same time, GM also began filing lawsuits against workers that had previously been doing exactly that - expanding the discount to non-employees and people outside their immediate family. The suits are seeking a total $450,000 in damages.

Alleging fraud in the application of the employee discount to ineligible buyers, the suits include current and former employees as their targets.

One such defendant, a retired autoworker in Buffalo, New York, is being sued for 13 infractions totaling $45,501 in claimed damages over a three-year period ending in 2007, reports The Detroit News. The irony - or hypocrisy, as it might fairly be called - of simultaneously expanding the discount and prosecuting previous violators of the program is not lost on the defendants or their legal representatives.

The company itself admits that it may have turned a blind eye to such abuses of its discount program in years past, when losses weren't counted in the dozens of billions. Now that times are hard and cash is scarce, however, things have to change. That position stands at odds with the recent official expansion of the discount, however, and combined with the company's past failure to take action against employees handing out discounts without authorization, GM may find itself estopped from further action against those employees.



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Comments (5)

  1. By chris Posted: 9/1/2008 6:03pm PDT

    well lets get something straight.. this lawsuit isnt intended to recover half a million dollars... the legal fees alone will eat half of the winings.. the point is to send a message to the rest of the employees.. its a line in the sand.
     
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  2. By Joe Posted: 9/1/2008 10:27pm PDT

    well when your a failing automaker you need to retain all the money you can.
    especially when toyota is taking over your market. must suck to be behind a foreign automaker in your home countrys market. oh ps. ford already offered employee pricing to the public a while ago . so did dodge didnt they. it didnt work for them ... no wonder gm is falling off. come up with something new, fools, not a retro camaro years after ford made a retro mustang then dodge falowed suit with the chargers and challengers. dang yall its pretty much out on their sleeves now... as for the workers they were prolly gonna get caned from company downsize anyway. this just adds insult to injury.....
     
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  3. By Laz Posted: 9/2/2008 2:19pm PDT

    I can say this will not help GM's public image!
     
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  4. By TomWilkinsonatGM Posted: 9/2/2008 3:39pm PDT

    The issue here is theft, plain and simple. The attitude reminds me of the Johnny Cash song "One Piece at a Time." Funny, but a recipe for going out of business. If GM is going to compete head-to-head with a company like Toyota, we are going to have to watch every detail of what we do, and watch every penny that we spend. The old "They are so big they won't notice anything is missing" went out the door with global competition. The fact is, the employees in question were contacted by GM and given the chance to make things right. The lawyers were called only when an employee failed to respond.
     
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  5. By Survivor Posted: 11/18/2009 11:40am PST

    I am a 62 year old surviving widow of a deceased employee. GM screwed me out of my pension by bombarding me with letters and forms pertaining to my late husbands medical condition that had to be signed when he applied for disability. He was ill for 20+ years and had worked for GM 26 years. Ignorantly I signed away my survivor pension. From what I read this was not an uncommon practice years ago when they didn't require a spouses signature.
    To add insult to injury, they are auditing me for the vehicle purchase of someone I didn't authorize. It was through the dealership. I was lucky if I used 2 or 3 authorizations a year. Only twice did I personally use the discount. One of the times I ended up with a lemon of a vehicle that I returned.
    They have told me it is my responsibility to handle matters with the dealership. One of us will be charged the discounted amount.
    Good old GM. Needless to say I will never again buy a GM product, and will encourage my family to follow suit.
     
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