Startup not clearing fnf settlement but asking to return the laptop
A friend of mine left a small startup (less than 10 people) because they were paying him peanuts inspite of high workload (9am to 11pm, remote work) and were not willing to give any raise (they were paying him less than 50k per month after working for them for 6 years).
They often used the carrot dangling tactics where they would promise him and the others for "bright future ahead", which would eventually fizzle out to nothing but excuses.
Now that he has left, they are not clearing his FnF settlement of last 2 month's salary but are asking him to return his laptop. They are saying that they don't have any money and the current clients are not paying anything, and they can only pay when the clients pay them.
Can they take any action if he decides to not return the laptop till his FnF settlement is cleared ?
PS: the laptop is clean, no monitoring software installed. It had been completely formatted before being given to him. So it's as good as a personal laptop.
If there is no bad intent from the company side, company would be happy to settle off FnF against the laptop. I am assuming it’s a MacBook hence it would be worth for the employee to let go 1L in salary
Not sure about bad intent... But apparently they haven't paid the salary to some of the contract hires too (for some it's been 6-7 months pending). My friend left the company about 3-4 months back... They have given the docs, but not the salary
Have a strong feeling that they'll just ghost him once he returns the laptop
Take a lawyers advice.
I had read that some companies do let the laid off employees keep the laptop. May be google about that and ask the friend to drop polite hint about that (assuming that laptop covers the cost of FNF). See what they reply. Based on that, decide next course of actions.