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Potential Employer Cancels Return Flight
- florinutz 8y agocan't wait to hear the name
- DigiMortal 8y agoWhat a petty company
- Johnny555 8y agoI agree with the others that are skeptical of this story. The only justification I can think of for this is if the company felt they were defrauded. Like if the guy had a great resume with years of experience in all the skills they want and he passed the phone screen with flying colors and then when brought on-site he couldn't answer a single question, maybe the company thought that he had someone else do the phone screen.
- crooked-v 8y agoThis sounds like it should be a "name and shame" situation, as well as a small claims court case for the cost of return transportation and any additional expenses from the time stuck in the airport.
- paulcole 8y agoWhat's this broke person going to do, fly back to take them to small claims court?
- balabaster 8y agoThis is where the press can be leveraged.
- anonu 8y agoDon't agree that this is clearly a "name and shame" situation. Even if the candidate is the aggrieved party here, there may be repercussions to one's reputation to reveal who the company is... Especially if its a "he said, she said" type of situation with minimal proof.
- GlenTheMachine 8y agoPretty sure, if nothing else, that you could sue them in small claims court. Unfortunately, in my experience (IANAL), small claims courts only have the power to enforce ruling via liens or other local means. Which means that if you bring suit in your local small claims court, the only way to collect is if the company in question has real estate or other holdings in your local area. Alternatively you could bring a suit in the company's home district, but that means you actually have to show up in court there. Which means travel expenses. Usually it isn't worth it.
- ryandrake 8y agoI wish people would name the company, especially when it does something this awful. Why be coy? It’s not like there is a chance that you’d get the job anyway. You could save lots of other candidates time and grief. Name the company and the first and last name of the recruiter who stonewalled you when you told them you were stranded at an airport due to their unacceptable behavior.
- ardfie 8y agoThat might come following legal advice or action. I can understand erring on the side of caution here.
- Verdex 8y agoYou can always name and shame later. However, once the name gets out, you can't take it back. Erring on the side of caution is the right move.
- elliekelly 8y ago> I wish people would name the company, especially when it does something this awful. Why be coy? Agreed. The cynical lawyer in me believes that people who don't name and shame in these situations aren't telling the whole truth. If they named & shamed and the story wasn't true it's defamation.
- sremani 8y agoThe only situation I can justify this if there is an undeniable proof of FRAUD. That is a different person takes phone interview and from the one that shows up for in-person. Its very likely that some one did not do due diligence and ended up with a wrong candidate and wanted to cover their budgeting ass.
- crispyambulance 8y agoNope not even flat-out fraud could justify stranding someone in another city. Some folks are desperate to work and may resort to deception to get their foot in the door for an interview. On the scale of nefarious activity, I put that pretty far down on the list-- slightly worse than jay-walking. I have my doubts about the veracity of the story, but if it is true then that company needs to be shamed.
- taormina 8y agoA plane ticket does need a name on it.
- CarriersSuck 8y agoThen contact the TSA, but don't cancel the ticket.
- Johnny555 8y agoI disagree -- fraud absolutely justifies this -- if an overweight dark haired guy did the initial video screen and the company flew him out for an interview, but then a skinny blonde guy shows up and can't answer any of their interview questions, I don't see why the company has any obligation to fly him back home -- they agreed to fly out the guy from the video call, not the guy that showed up.
- Verdex 8y agoMaybe, but it does open up the door to a lawsuit. What if the overweight guy was actually working for a recruiter who had a scam going on to get unqualified people hired. The skinny guy might not know that someone else took an interview for him because it was all a plan by the recruiter. In this instance you're punishing someone who was acting in good faith, but had the misfortune to find a corrupt recruiter. Better would be to use the legal system to recoup your costs. This way you don't accidentally recoup your costs from an innocent individual with zero oversight.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y agoI agree this sounds pretty damning for the company. But life has taught me to always get both sides of a story before reaching any conclusions.
- joekrill 8y agoI absolutely agree with you. But at the same time I'm really having a hard time coming up with a reasonable explanation for this from the company's point of view. Unless the whole thing is an outright lie. It's a brand new Stack Exchange user. There's absolutely no legitimacy to any of the story at this point. People do this sort of thing all the time on the internet, after all. But assuming it isn't totally fabricated -- even if the guy was completely unprofessional, rude, and/or vulgar (lets say, he stormed out and told everyone to go F themselves), I still can't see it being acceptable for them to cancel his return flight home if they flew him out in the first place. But I don't think we'll ever get the other side of the story in this case because I don't think we'll ever get confirmation that this is even real.
- elliekelly 8y ago> Unless the whole thing is an outright lie. It's a brand new Stack Exchange user. My thoughts exactly. The person claims they've been stuck in the airport for 3 days and eating scraps? That seems awfully dramatic to me. Like someone looking for generous internet strangers to offer assistance via Venmo.
- DennisP 8y agoMentioning that he already has a way home probably isn't the way to get donations.
- elliekelly 8y agoAgree to disagree. I can't think of a fate worse than 72 hours on a greyhound bus.
- robodale 8y agoThis could easily make national news. Name and Shame.
- vkaku 8y agoPut it on Glassdoor. Let people learn more about this employer.
- catchmeifyoucan 8y agoI really want to know the name of the company now
- DennisP 8y agoNote the answer on law.stackexchange: this is breach of contract. The consideration provided by the candidate is the time and effort of traveling, so company employees wouldn't have to do it. A possible exception is if the candidate lied to get the interview. https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/36259/if-a-company-agrees-to-pay-travel-cost-for-a-job-interview-is-the-promise-bindi https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/36259/if-a-company-a...
- wool_gather 8y agoI don't buy a word of this. That fourth paragraph is an over the top perfect storm of woe-is-me. > I'm completely broke due to poor financial decisions (that's a different story), so I can't afford a last minute plane ticket. It doesn't help that this is a small airport, so ticket prices are high. So basically I've been stuck at the airport for the past 3 days. Yesterday, my credit card started being declined, so I've had to eat scraps from other customers. A mild troll, but SE still got trolled. --- I guess I should clarify. Responses below are right, it's not hard to believe that there are people without savings, I've also been in that boat. But this portion has nothing to do with the point of the post; given the outrageous nature of the post in the first place, this smells to me like a sob element to hook more people in. Every part of the post is hyperbolic. "I blew every question and I could tell that they didn't like me personally." Really, every single one? Oh, and now they decide they don't like you even though you've gotten to the stage where they flew you across the country?? Laying everything on this thick just doesn't increase credibility for me. It makes me suspicious.
- izzydata 8y agoMaybe, but there are plenty of people in terrible financial situations that would be seeking for anyway out of it. Maxed credit cards and nothing to fall back on, etc.. Considering there are at least a million people in this situation any one of them could have accepted a remote interview.
- notus 8y agoWhy is that hard to believe? When I first started my tech career I was in a similar boat trying to go to interviews with no money in my pocket.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- swasheck 8y agoA variant of the "Nigerian Price" (https://www.bbb.org/new-york-city/get-consumer-help/articles/the-nigerian-prince-old-scam-new-twist/ https://www.bbb.org/new-york-city/get-consumer-help/articles...)?
- sago 8y agoI have been on the other side of this. I didn't cancel the return flight, but I was sorely tempted. In my case it was the early days of a company, and I flew a potentially important applicant from Europe for an interview, paid for hotel, food etc. They performed terribly. When I sat down with them to figure out why, it quickly became apparent they had fundamentally misrepresented themselves. Partially through lies, even more through slippery worded deceit. They finally admitted to being basically a starting-out developer, skilled at attaching themselves to high-profile projects and claiming this work as their own. I did talk to our lawyer about trying to recover the costs. They told me he wasn't worth the lawsuit. It was a learning experience. I did things differently after that. In the same way one would change one's behaviour after being the victim of any con. So I do wonder what the other side to this particular story is.
- magduf 8y agoThis is the cost of doing business, and indeed is the entire point of interviewing candidates for jobs. Would you have preferred to pay full relocation for the guy and give him the job without any interview, and then find out a week or two after he starts that he's incompetent or has misrepresented himself?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- derekp7 8y agoIs there anything that could have been different in the phone interview or skype video that would have exposed this earlier? Or is it too easy for such a candidate to cheat when remote? Was also wondering what is in it for the candidate -- if they know that they are going to flunk the on-site interview, do they just want a free vacation out of it?
- philwelch 8y agoA free one-day vacation where you have to spend most of the day doing job interviews is a shitty vacation.
- izacus 8y agoI really can't fanthom the thought process that could bring anyone to the point where he wants to strand someone on an airport with a huge bill. I get that you're angry... but this is vindictive beyond words. Sue the guy on small claims court, blacklist him, shame him publicly. But cancel his plane ticket so he's stranded and broke on an airport? How inhuman has to be a person to do that? Over a single dumb interview?
- Jarb 8y agoMy then-girlfriend had something similar happen to her years ago. She drove around 5 hours to interview at an engineering/architecture firm and was put up at a budget hotel for the night. Although she had to pay for the room in advance, the company said they'd reimburse her for it and the mileage. Of course they did neither and effectively ghosted her after the interview when she tried to recoup her losses.
- magduf 8y agoI learned early on in my career to not bother interviewing with non-local companies that wouldn't pay for my interview expenses up-front (hotel, airfare if necessary). If they're that cheap, they're not going to be a good place to work for. I've also found that smaller companies tend to be really bad about this stuff (not universally!). Big companies are almost always very fair and honorable about treating interviewees well.
- philwelch 8y agoBig companies have legal, HR, and compliance departments who know that it's not worth nickel-and-diming on petty shit.
- magduf 8y agoYep, exactly this. HR can be evil at times, but here their evilness is actually a good thing, because it's cold, hard rational logic: "nickel-and-diming on petty shit" is bad for the company's bottom line.
- philwelch 8y agoThere's another part of this story that doesn't quite add up. Airlines, in general, like to book round-trip flights rather than one-way flights. Not only is a round-trip flight generally less expensive than two otherwise equivalent one-way flights, but sometimes it's even less expensive than either one-way flight booked alone. So why would you ever get a refund for cancelling the return leg of a round-trip flight?
- techslave 8y agoThere is zero chance that this is authentic; ie that this gives us enough of a view into what actually happened.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]