EMPLOYEE’S SIGN ON BONUS WAS $20K, 6 MONTHS LATER H.R SAYS “ACTUALLY IT’S $10K”

Was informed by HR today that my 20k sign on bonus was actually 10k

I emailed HR last week after working here for 6 mo to confirm it was a lump sum payout after 2 years (i had already known this through coworkers, but wanted to confirm) and was informed by HR that they don’t actually have a signed contract and sent me one to sign for 10k.

After responding back stating my original offer and contract, they said the 20k offer was a miscommunication and don’t have record of the original contract.

When I accepted the position originally I signed the 20k contract and sent it back to HR. Then I had to push my start date back 3 months which they had no problem with.

3 months later they made me reapply for the position under a different HR system, which I found suspicious.

When I reapplied I made it a point to clarify this was the same position I had already signed a contract for with the same sign on bonus of 20k.

HR lady said yes and that it was just a technicality because of new system and even updated the new posting to say “20,000 sign on bonus eligible”.

6 months later here I am getting lied to when I could have gotten better position when I was searching, but chose this because of the sign on bonus.

The email of me sending back the signed 20k contract is also scrubbed from our employee email and suspiciously no where to be found (which I am very certain I sent).

Netizens’ comments

1. Present them with your copy of the signed contract. You did save a copy of the contract, didn’t you?
2. If I signed a contract for a $20,000 bonus I would have a plethora of copies.
3. Why is the email accepting the job coming from your work email? How did you have access to your work email before accepting the job, shouldn’t that email be in your personal account?
4. And that right there is why I BCCed my personal email on every legal document I signed with my employer.
5. Sounds like you gotta sue them. And if you have communication from them that says that the 20k was a mistake (rather than them just outright denying that it was ever offered) then they are basically just admitting that the agreement did exist.