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This table https://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/fbi2020crimesbyloss.png https://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/fbi20... from h

This table https://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/fbi2020crimesbyloss.png https://krebsonsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/fbi20... from https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2020_IC3Report.pdf https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2020_IC3Report.pd... is most interesting. $ 1.8 BLN in "Business Email Compromise (BEC) or CEO Scams, in which crooks mainly based in Africa and Southeast Asia will spoof communications from executives at the target firm in a bid to initiate unauthorized international wire transfers." $0 for terrorism. Meanwhile wage theft in the US is estimated between 40 and 60 Billion $.

pc86 5y ago
Do you have a source on $40-60B for wage theft, that includes a definition of wage theft? Searching does not yield much.
- gruez 5y ago
  >that includes a definition of wage theft AFAIK it boils down to "amount that employees should have been paid but haven't". That might sound comparable to regular theft, but it's not, because it fails to account for the intent component. If you forgot to scan a bag of potatoes in your shopping cart and you walked out of the store with it, it's not theft because you didn't intend to do it. I'm not saying that all wage theft can be excused this way, but I'm not a fan of the combination of naming/definition.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Employers that fail to compensate their employees in the agreed upon manner are incredibly scummy and you should run very fast in the other direction. That said if the person who runs payroll was suddenly sick for three days in a row getting your payment two days late is acceptable. It's a question of the magnitude of lateness - if ever your employer says they'll "make sure you get double next pay period" it's a good sign to leave - and they're still obligated to pay you for the previous pay period regardless of how undiplomatically you exit. You also need to realize that a lot of Americans work paycheck to paycheck so an employer failing their obligation can cause financial hardship and possibly force debt (with the accompanying interest) on their employee.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >Employers that fail to compensate their employees in the agreed upon manner are incredibly scummy and you should run very fast in the other direction That... depends? If you're salaried and your employer missed a paycheck I'd agree it's scummy, because it's hard they screwed that up. However, if you're being compensated variably (eg. hourly or on commission), and you got paid incorrectly because of some random failure (eg. timesheet got lost/buried, sales numbers got delayed due to ERP issues) I think it's excusable if it was fixed in a timely manner.
      - munk-a 5y ago
        I agree with that yes - if your employer resolves the situation quickly without causing you stress that's fair. However - it's their obligation, above all else, to make sure you're getting paid. If this sort of error occurs repeatedly due to someone unqualified to handle the books then your employer should rectify the situation. I think it's fair - while that money is tied up in limbo - to essentially cease working. That provides a very clear incentive and attaches a level of importance to the incident that should prompt your employer to correct in the future. Everyone makes mistakes - we're all human - however recovering denied wages is a very difficult legal fight that often results in failure due to debt shenanigans and the like. As an employee you need to be incredibly defensive about any interruption to your pay stream.
      - hatchnyc 5y ago
        Here's an example: a retail store has several KPI they must hit set by corporate. One is some kind of metrics on work performed, another is not allowing above some level of overtime hours. Officially, working off the clock is a fireable offense, but no controls are in place to catch this, meanwhile the work done metrics are closely monitored. Expected KPI numbers are ratcheted up and managers are placed in intense competition with each other. Managers have been promoted internally and do not have better career options, some significant number of employees badly need their job and routinely agree to work late. This is a self-reinforcing cycle--eventually the only way to meet your targets is to "cheat". This is an incredibly common practice. Employees may come to believe some version of, "this sucks, but that's just how it is". Meanwhile employers and management have complete deniability and can point to company policy saying this is explicitly not allowed.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    No, the very definition of wage theft implies intention. """Wage theft is the denial of wages or employee benefits rightfully owed to an employee. It can be conducted by employers in various ways, among them failing to pay overtime; violating minimum-wage laws; the misclassification of employees as independent contractors, illegal deductions in pay; forcing employees to work "off the clock", not paying annual leave or holiday entitlements, or simply not paying an employee at all. """ from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft It's not a delay in payment or a misplaced bag of potatoes.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - gruez 5y ago
      fair enough. The definition I skimmed from epi was much looser: >This failure to pay what workers are legally entitled to can be called wage theft https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-workers-hundreds/ https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-...
      - goodpoint 5y ago
        No, it's very clear in the first 2 paragraph that EPI is referring to recurring underpayment, not an occasional good-faith error or delay.
- yodon 5y ago
  >Do you have a source on $40-60B for wage theft, that includes a definition of wage theft? Searching does not yield much. Not quite what you're looking for, but here's a recent article [0] on a $1.6M fine for $1.4M in violations at a single restaurant in San Francisco. [0]https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-chinatown-restaurant-to-pay-1-6m-to-settle-wage-theft-claims.amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco...
- goodpoint 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft#cite_note-Groote-13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft#cite_note-Groote-13 and https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-workers-hundreds/ https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-... ...having said that, wage theft is not only difficult to quantify but even to define precisely.
  - lapetitejort 5y ago
    Ask anyone working minimum wage jobs to help describe wage theft and they'll give plenty of definitions. I worked at a movie theater as a manager. On slow weekdays I was scheduled from open to close. But the manager above me added a two hour "lunch break" each day to my time card. Maybe a half hour of that was actual free time. They withheld company policy from me regarding what I was entitled as a full time employee (vacation days, etc). People can get creative when stealing from minimum wage employees.
    - ljf 5y ago
      An employee steals £20 from the company and the police will come and arrest that person, and they have a good chance to bring a prosecution if they have committed a similar crime before. An employer with-holds/steals/defrauds an employee for £500 or more, and not only will the police not care, they won't even note it as a crime. Best bet is a civil court, but that takes time and can cost money. So most people just move on and the employer does it again and again.
      - moate 5y ago
        It's almost like it's a feature and not a bug. Like somehow management was able to use all these ill-gotten gains to exert influence on the courts/legislatures to create a more corporate-friendly/employee-hostile environment...
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    I was one of the first employees at a startup. Originally a contractor. When the owner converted us all to employees, he did the math in such a way that it was clear he didn’t count weekends so we got a pay-cut. We made a big stink out of it, but he didn’t budge until there was an outage on Saturday and we didn’t fix it until Monday. There was only three of us, colluding not to fix it, but he’d have gotten away with it if the team were bigger. It’s hard to “make a stand” when more people are involved.
gruez 5y ago
>$0 for terrorism. What's this supposed to mean? That terrorists don't receive financing and/or conduct illegal activities to finance their activities?

pc86 5y ago

Do you have a source on $40-60B for wage theft, that includes a definition of wage theft? Searching does not yield much.

gruez 5y ago
>that includes a definition of wage theft AFAIK it boils down to "amount that employees should have been paid but haven't". That might sound comparable to regular theft, but it's not, because it fails to account for the intent component. If you forgot to scan a bag of potatoes in your shopping cart and you walked out of the store with it, it's not theft because you didn't intend to do it. I'm not saying that all wage theft can be excused this way, but I'm not a fan of the combination of naming/definition.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Employers that fail to compensate their employees in the agreed upon manner are incredibly scummy and you should run very fast in the other direction. That said if the person who runs payroll was suddenly sick for three days in a row getting your payment two days late is acceptable. It's a question of the magnitude of lateness - if ever your employer says they'll "make sure you get double next pay period" it's a good sign to leave - and they're still obligated to pay you for the previous pay period regardless of how undiplomatically you exit. You also need to realize that a lot of Americans work paycheck to paycheck so an employer failing their obligation can cause financial hardship and possibly force debt (with the accompanying interest) on their employee.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >Employers that fail to compensate their employees in the agreed upon manner are incredibly scummy and you should run very fast in the other direction That... depends? If you're salaried and your employer missed a paycheck I'd agree it's scummy, because it's hard they screwed that up. However, if you're being compensated variably (eg. hourly or on commission), and you got paid incorrectly because of some random failure (eg. timesheet got lost/buried, sales numbers got delayed due to ERP issues) I think it's excusable if it was fixed in a timely manner.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I agree with that yes - if your employer resolves the situation quickly without causing you stress that's fair. However - it's their obligation, above all else, to make sure you're getting paid. If this sort of error occurs repeatedly due to someone unqualified to handle the books then your employer should rectify the situation. I think it's fair - while that money is tied up in limbo - to essentially cease working. That provides a very clear incentive and attaches a level of importance to the incident that should prompt your employer to correct in the future. Everyone makes mistakes - we're all human - however recovering denied wages is a very difficult legal fight that often results in failure due to debt shenanigans and the like. As an employee you need to be incredibly defensive about any interruption to your pay stream.
    - hatchnyc 5y ago
      Here's an example: a retail store has several KPI they must hit set by corporate. One is some kind of metrics on work performed, another is not allowing above some level of overtime hours. Officially, working off the clock is a fireable offense, but no controls are in place to catch this, meanwhile the work done metrics are closely monitored. Expected KPI numbers are ratcheted up and managers are placed in intense competition with each other. Managers have been promoted internally and do not have better career options, some significant number of employees badly need their job and routinely agree to work late. This is a self-reinforcing cycle--eventually the only way to meet your targets is to "cheat". This is an incredibly common practice. Employees may come to believe some version of, "this sucks, but that's just how it is". Meanwhile employers and management have complete deniability and can point to company policy saying this is explicitly not allowed.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  No, the very definition of wage theft implies intention. """Wage theft is the denial of wages or employee benefits rightfully owed to an employee. It can be conducted by employers in various ways, among them failing to pay overtime; violating minimum-wage laws; the misclassification of employees as independent contractors, illegal deductions in pay; forcing employees to work "off the clock", not paying annual leave or holiday entitlements, or simply not paying an employee at all. """ from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft It's not a delay in payment or a misplaced bag of potatoes.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - gruez 5y ago
    fair enough. The definition I skimmed from epi was much looser: >This failure to pay what workers are legally entitled to can be called wage theft https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-workers-hundreds/ https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-...
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      No, it's very clear in the first 2 paragraph that EPI is referring to recurring underpayment, not an occasional good-faith error or delay.
yodon 5y ago
>Do you have a source on $40-60B for wage theft, that includes a definition of wage theft? Searching does not yield much. Not quite what you're looking for, but here's a recent article [0] on a $1.6M fine for $1.4M in violations at a single restaurant in San Francisco. [0]https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-chinatown-restaurant-to-pay-1-6m-to-settle-wage-theft-claims.amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco...
goodpoint 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft#cite_note-Groote-13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft#cite_note-Groote-13 and https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-workers-hundreds/ https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-... ...having said that, wage theft is not only difficult to quantify but even to define precisely.
- lapetitejort 5y ago
  Ask anyone working minimum wage jobs to help describe wage theft and they'll give plenty of definitions. I worked at a movie theater as a manager. On slow weekdays I was scheduled from open to close. But the manager above me added a two hour "lunch break" each day to my time card. Maybe a half hour of that was actual free time. They withheld company policy from me regarding what I was entitled as a full time employee (vacation days, etc). People can get creative when stealing from minimum wage employees.
  - ljf 5y ago
    An employee steals £20 from the company and the police will come and arrest that person, and they have a good chance to bring a prosecution if they have committed a similar crime before. An employer with-holds/steals/defrauds an employee for £500 or more, and not only will the police not care, they won't even note it as a crime. Best bet is a civil court, but that takes time and can cost money. So most people just move on and the employer does it again and again.
    - moate 5y ago
      It's almost like it's a feature and not a bug. Like somehow management was able to use all these ill-gotten gains to exert influence on the courts/legislatures to create a more corporate-friendly/employee-hostile environment...
- withinboredom 5y ago
  I was one of the first employees at a startup. Originally a contractor. When the owner converted us all to employees, he did the math in such a way that it was clear he didn’t count weekends so we got a pay-cut. We made a big stink out of it, but he didn’t budge until there was an outage on Saturday and we didn’t fix it until Monday. There was only three of us, colluding not to fix it, but he’d have gotten away with it if the team were bigger. It’s hard to “make a stand” when more people are involved.

gruez 5y ago

>$0 for terrorism. What's this supposed to mean? That terrorists don't receive financing and/or conduct illegal activities to finance their activities?