True Payroll Crime Stories - Hidden Agenda (Episode 104)

[00:00:00] Asmr is like could prevent you from paying people, could prevent you from keeping your doors open. You know what I'm saying? Welcome to our podcast It's About Payroll. We're your host Brian Eskabar and Walter William Duncan III. Whether you're new to the payroll game or seasoned veteran we have something for you. Welcome back folks! This is episode 104.

[00:00:30] I'm glad to see you again today but before we get into it how are you doing Walter? I am good sir. Again just grateful to be at the spot that we're in and I'm just happy to be here man on this Saturday morning.

[00:00:44] Are you doing those rainy outside? Still got to rain over there. Yeah okay. How are you this is hot over here man. We're about to do like a walk for a charity walk tomorrow and man I don't know hopefully not. Hopefully like a one K but not that I don't not that I'm not trying to exercise but I'm bringing we're bringing the kids so it's going to be a little bit to manage with them. I'm like dang I wish they could bring me I know my son is going to complain even though he actually is

[00:01:14] a great athlete when he surprises. He's an amazing athlete but I should say he's just naturally talented right. We got to bring the kids with us and my little one in this. Yeah she's dancing they're fine but they're going

[00:01:27] to complain when we went to New York we had them walking around everywhere they were like my knee would they say my it feel like my legs are going to break off.

[00:01:34] Yeah but what's going to kill it is this the last week was nice right we had we've been getting cool weather and I'm in South Florida folks and what was in northern I'm married Michigan with no

[00:01:47] Michigan or whatever it was night but this weekend is going to be abnormally hot thanks so for the season not because I we joke around anyway here there's only two seasons here summer and summer junior is just yeah so that's it for me.

[00:02:03] So yeah today we're talking about true payroll crime story before we get into it though we have some pay news updates and wall is has our first one.

[00:02:14] Excuse me bro I'm sorry man you okay now I'm feeling a little sick which reminds me crap man I need to put in my sick time. Oh what's

[00:02:26] system do you use. Oh time track go the simply better employee time clock software that is going to make your life easier I don't know if

[00:02:36] you know man but it already has a unique graphical employee time card and it's awesome because it helps you quickly identify and fix the mistakes.

[00:02:46] That's right now did you say that they just announced the addition of automatic PTO crew earnings so you can say goodbye to those manual calculations time track goes new automatic PTO

[00:02:57] or cruel feature takes the hassle out of tracking those earned in accrued times assuring accuracy and consistency for both employees and HR teams.

[00:03:07] Oh that's golden that's awesome you know what that's right I remember that read that you can choose from various rules like yearly monthly pay period hourly and hourly percentage to seamlessly align with your company's policies it includes new state sick leave awesome because I'm not feeling good that's going to help.

[00:03:32] And you can do vacation hours that automatically increase with length of service.

[00:03:39] Man how can someone find out what a simply better solution could do for their business. Oh to learn more they're doing a 14 day free trial someone should go to their website at www.

[00:03:54] Time track go dot com that's T I M E T R A K go dot com or if they want to call the number is 888 321922 let's go.

[00:04:12] Let's go. All right this update is a look back on a our very first true peril crime story that we did history at the museum so it's a look back on the impact that it actually had on the individuals this article by New York Times that they did really focused on how Michael man who was the guy who did the crime here.

[00:04:37] How he impacted somewhere people's lives and how it had downstream impact for those people and they still are trying to recover to this day for some people right.

[00:04:46] So the key takeaways from this article was like I said the impact on the individuals sudden closure of my payroll HR had devastating consequences for individuals like Nicole Ingram a nursing student who found her paycheck withdrawn while at the supermarket.

[00:05:04] Leave your heart unable to pay rent and other bills so imagine that feeling you're going to try to get your stuff for your family for yourself however yeah and you can't pay your rent you can't get food you can't do anything that must stop I'm sure she had people to rely on but in that moment I probably felt like a helpless perplexing moment for her.

[00:05:25] Yeah business owners number two business owners were affected small business owners like Stephanie Ross Pettit suffered significant financial losses with her businesses businesses in upstate New York losing nearly $50,000 to the collapse of my payroll HR.

[00:05:46] So they talk about other people in this article other businesses and stuff like that but man $50,000 especially to a small business owner if you have a couple different locations.

[00:05:56] Could make it right yeah yeah yeah $50,000 like could prevent you from paying people that could prevent you from keeping your doors open you know I'm saying.

[00:06:04] Yeah number three legal and legislative response this incident prompted a legal and legislative response with New York state senators introducing legislation to tighten regulations on the payroll industry

[00:06:20] and establish safeguards against future crisis so because of what Michael man did you know government stepped in and passed some laws to tighten up stuff on the payroll.

[00:06:31] You know I'm saying so to prevent this from happening from in the future right number four again a little bit about the purpose the perpetrators profile Michael man he used to be the he used to be the president of my payroll HR and he was revealed to be the mastermind behind the fraud scheme yes 70 mil

[00:06:53] yeah see I don't we didn't have all those details when we first did this right stuff is coming out.

[00:07:00] Holy cow.

[00:07:02] Oh then as I mentioned there's still ongoing struggles in my last point many individuals and still and businesses are still grappling with the aftermath waiting to still waiting for reimbursement

[00:07:17] and uncertain about their financial future despite effort efforts by authorities and legislation concerns remain about the vulnerability of the payroll industry and the potential for similar incidents in the future.

[00:07:31] That's what I have to share with the facts yeah no this is also and this is exactly what we've been talking about trying to follow up on how you see how crazy this is because when we first did it we didn't have it was he was just right just indicted and was all or no he was convicted.

[00:07:46] No he wasn't he wasn't doing the time yet but it was early on yeah it was waiting for exactly he had been fired of course and it was it was pending but man how crazy these ripple effects these impacts that again we as I got we got to get Adrian Resto back on this

[00:08:04] that gonna show yeah payroll is life and this is something that um that this is an example of it right we did something someone that was responsible for payroll was malicious about it and impacted other folks lives man.

[00:08:21] Because of what he did it caused Congress or New York state the past legislation because of what he did absolutely has ripple effects right because they have to be reactionary you have to.

[00:08:34] It's off it's very similar to when as professionals when we find something wrong in our job oh wait we got to go we got to fix that it's audits I covered audits in in in a payroll course that i'm teaching I did we did a I did a session on auditing and I got a really great question from the attendee hey what kind of audit should we do and there's basic audits but what I recommended also is let the pain points at your particular job also.

[00:09:04] Drive what you audit and unfortunately you don't know the pain points sometimes until it happens and it's whoa what happened here oh my good one time I had found luckily I found it really early on because I was i don't just noticed it it wasn't even I wasn't even looking for it I just had the right eye point to my head but it's my eye folks were punts folks were using their pto over the weekend

[00:09:29] and basically what they were doing hourly employees were using the system they were taking advantage of guard rail that didn't exist in the system and they were putting their pto time on the weekend and they were using it as a way to get paid more.

[00:09:47] Now at the end of the day.

[00:09:50] It did take away from their pto time but they didn't care they were doing payouts basically they were just found a way to gain the system to get payout pto payouts for themselves and.

[00:10:04] And then I caught it and I was like whoa what no we were in the I think that's how I caught it I was in the midst of implementing a new pay a new time and attendance system for this group.

[00:10:14] And in the setup phase you look at you you want to look back at the data that you are about to map over you want to look at the trends that you have in your system or in your data already.

[00:10:27] And I'm like how come there Saturday and Sunday pto these folks don't as closed on set and I had to dig wait hey do they work on Saturdays no we don't not normally it's like extra okay it's not part of the schedule.

[00:10:39] But so once we implemented the new time in attendance system that had all the bells and whistles now you can now use can't do it yeah now you can't do it so because you can add those adults in there you can add those guard rails you can.

[00:10:55] Yeah from requesting time off on the weekend you can say hey we go in a request Monday through Friday.

[00:11:01] Yeah these dates all days and weekends you can't do it.

[00:11:04] Yep now here's a here's the other side of that on the guard rails because I did have an employee I did have pushback from a particular department where an employee was working like they had 12 or 10 or 12 hour days I think it was right at folks with just starting to test out that for what is it three tens

[00:11:25] four tens you when you work three four tens or three 12s I think it is work either 312 hour days or 410 hour days and so a manager call me was like hey Brian my employee can't request or no what was it they were they did request the pto but he noticed on his paycheck that it was only for eight hours.

[00:11:47] And she the player the manager call me was like hey my employees only getting eight hours and I was like yeah how many hours did they work and then so he's just when she told me she was like well no this is a 10 hour employee that he does work 10 hours shifts for me and I was like oh.

[00:12:04] So I had to change the mapping and the parameters around the allowable time for pto because.

[00:12:13] This person works and I was so just to keep in mind it goes both ways the guard rails and they had a help but they shouldn't also prohibit something that should happen so you might have to be flexible on how you build it.

[00:12:25] And depending on the system you might still have to do your audits and stay on top i love audits i love looking at the data you should always have these audits i'm a big advocate of keeping the system honest keeping your vendors honest keeping your managers honest trust but verify.

[00:12:41] Right trust but verify like we always say yeah that was just a good made me think of that nice man yeah what you got for us.

[00:12:50] Oh you ready for my own so I got in honor of women's history month and an honor of international woman's data just passed i found an article from sea biz they did they honored a bunch of.

[00:13:07] Women in business for different accomplishments and shout out to sea biz one of our colleagues and friends of the show Gerard Hall.

[00:13:16] Is works for sea biz and oh gosh he just.

[00:13:22] That payroll guy go check out that payroll guy calm he's been he just made 16 years with sea biz congrats and shout out to Gerard Hall look out we are going to be doing something super exciting with Gerard Hall.

[00:13:34] In about a month or so so stay tuned for that and but yeah so each honoree shows the spirit of innovation resilience and compassion inspiring others to strive for excellence and drive positive and transformational change.

[00:13:51] And i'm really just going to read off these names because I think they deserve the shout out they deserve their flowers right the honorees for 2024 women transforming business awards include for financial strength we have Beth so cup.

[00:14:08] Chief financial officer of J.E. Dunn construction we have joanne Williams AIB holdings board chair and jag portfolio services founder J.A.G.

[00:14:22] portfolio services founder we have Lisa Larson chief financial officer of homes corporation homes with a L.

[00:14:32] That was for financial strength for innovation we have Erica typeersky chief executive officer and co founder of sanguina hope I pronounce all that correctly Heather Decker chief technology officer for Ronaq incorporated carry siggins chief executive officer of stone age ink.

[00:14:57] And that was for the category of innovation and the category of culture we have dawn apagy founder city personnel.

[00:15:08] We have Lisa Lochner president of Missouri Baptist sub Sullivan hospital.

[00:15:14] We have Marla Carter chief human resource officer of doorways shout out to CHR roles.

[00:15:23] Yes, and that was for culture for community impact we have Ann Marie McDowell chief executive officer of Cora services.

[00:15:34] We have Michelle wins senior vice president chief equity and inclusion officer at children's mercy Kansas City.

[00:15:44] And last in that category for community impact is or mantra baola or mantra PhD and chair of master of arts and diversity leadership for university of St Thomas.

[00:15:59] And the last credit category for emerging leaders we have Alicia matomura vice president operations from middle ground capital.

[00:16:09] We have Kelsey jocson founder of in control.

[00:16:14] One word in control and the last one in the emerging leader category is sahana a three year chief executive officer and founder of navigator AI and former data saint data science lead millennium.

[00:16:31] By recognizing the invaluable contributions of these leaders we can celebrate their achievements and pave the way for future generations.

[00:16:48] Congratulations to this impressive group of honorees quoted by that that's a quote from Lori Novick national leader of C.

[00:16:58] Bizz women's advantage.

[00:17:02] Yeah shout out to you.

[00:17:03] Shout out to you.

[00:17:04] Yes amazing things and folks if you're not familiar with C. Bizz C. Bizz is a leading provider of financial insurance and advisory services to businesses throughout the United States.

[00:17:16] One of our and again to rod holes been with them for over over 15 years shout out to C. Bizz for paving the way to the world.

[00:17:26] And for paving the way for women's history month and recognizing these amazing women in business.

[00:17:34] Yes awesome thank you for that right here in there.

[00:17:37] Yeah heck yeah no thank you for C. Bizz for doing it but give doing great things out there that's awesome.

[00:17:43] So yeah let's get into it right we what are we talking we talk about a team would you find for true payroll crime.

[00:17:49] I found something on justice dot gov about a vice president at and secretary at winner winner fashion's incorporated this person was in diet on 30 counts of good.

[00:18:08] So I'm delighted to tax rod this person engage on it in a scheme that concealed almost $4 million 3.8 million to be exact and gross receipts and to evade around $300,000 in federal payroll taxes owed by the company.

[00:18:27] So it involves cash payments to employees and using the catching catching business to conceal revenue.

[00:18:35] Zoo I Gen zoo was arrested and is facing charges including conspiracy to defraud the IRS failure to pay over payroll taxes and aiding the preparation of false.

[00:18:49] Tax returns so I'm going to go over the key takeaways here and then Brian is going to go over some potential pretend preventive steps for this okay.

[00:19:02] The number one I have five key takeaways so zoo allegedly engage in a long running scheme to conceal millions of dollars and gross receipts into evade payroll taxes as I mentioned the scheme lasted my point second point the scheme lasted from 2016 to 2021.

[00:19:21] So again as it said it involves cash payments directly to employees and utilizing a check catching business to conceal the revenue from winners fashion's account.

[00:19:33] So they were doing this to love that county couldn't see it so they were trying to hide it from winner fashion's itself right oh wow so yeah so zoo is facing serious charges including conspiracy to defraud the IRS failure to pay payroll taxes and again preparing false tax returns.

[00:19:54] The IRS criminal investigation conducted the investigation leading to this person's arrest and the last point is that if found guilty this person faces a maximum sentence of several years in prison.

[00:20:13] Yeah yeah I don't think the crime I don't think the punishments fit the crimes because these folks are still in millions of dollars and they go do a few years in jail.

[00:20:24] I don't think it's fitting it is what it is any amount of time in prison is not good and please believe that jail is different from prison prison is real deal bang all right so yeah you remember Michael man that we talked about in the news update.

[00:20:39] He was eventually sentenced to 144 months in prison so that's 12 years.

[00:20:45] Okay so that was fitting that was fitting that's going man because he was an older person so yeah you can get out someone his 60s yeah 12 years in prison is a long time so long time folks you cannot mess with the IRS y'all.

[00:21:08] Do something else man you should not you can if you want to take the reins you should.

[00:21:14] The lawyer was crazy you're right you should not as correct the words are important you should not that's right all right here's some preventative steps we always like to give the solves and salute we are payroll and HR professionals at the end of the day so we need to like how do we prevent how do we solve this and I got six for you.

[00:21:34] And the first one is implement robust internal controls and oversight mechanisms to prevent financial fraud and ensure accurate reporting of income and taxes should we know firsthand what that's all about we're going.

[00:21:49] Going through that exercise recently so just make sure that things are and not because of fraudulent reasons just because we want to be proactive and stay on top of it and again i'm a big fan of being proactive staying on top of things like.

[00:22:03] Trust but verify.

[00:22:06] That's number two is conduct regular audits and reviews of financial records to detect any irregularities or discrepancies this makes me think of the celery folks are friends over at celery dot com celery like the vegetable but it sounds like salary right they have a tool.

[00:22:28] That can i don't know quote it AI automation whatever but they have a software that you can run your pay registers through or paid check stubs whichever I think both or either but check them out at celery dot com and.

[00:22:45] Thank you and they will they could actually.

[00:22:52] Point out the outliers stuff that you may not even be seeing right because it's the way they explained to us was like because they are one of the shows of GABA for you in a second what episode they're on but basically they're software will.

[00:23:09] So kind of show you the outliers like hey this is all normal right this is looks normal in your but here are like a few hundred that kind of just look odd but you may want to look at that and zero in on that so that.

[00:23:24] Thank you sir episode 85 if it's about payroll is celery dot com like the vegetable sounds like salary.

[00:23:35] And check it out listen to that show episode because that's a really great tool I really want that tool to become more of a normal thing.

[00:23:45] And for them to really get successful and spread that around the world so that was number two conduct regular audits and look for irregularities number three is provide training and education to employees about tax compliance and the consequences of fraudulent activities that's a good one right.

[00:24:04] Because I don't think we do that enough for real no because not in a bad way but we don't yeah we.

[00:24:11] I say we the royal everybody we companies the whole need we're not doing that enough let me know this makes us to you let me know this makes sense because when it's a good one that you have here it's a great point because I'm not saying that people we should treat people like children but think about how you train and teach your kids right.

[00:24:33] Hey, if you do this if you do a these are the consequences that may happen just like you train them you should want to train your employees on this is hey hey this is what you need to not do.

[00:24:51] And so I couldn't think of a better example now that's why I said children but you need to train them no it's a good for parents or if you yeah absolutely it's a great example thank you for that.

[00:25:02] Number four is encourage a culture of transparency and accountability within the organization where employees feel empowered to report specific specific suspicious activities this makes me think of radolio printables because he radical transparency radical honesty.

[00:25:22] And he promoted at bridge water to report the errors don't if you and I love it because if you don't report those errors right there's no way you're going to help the organization because what if somebody else runs into the same arrow they see the same data whatever that now they know and now you can prevent against it right like I said earlier let those pain points drive the audits that you build.

[00:25:49] Pain points may come along in the future and out of nowhere you don't you can predict everything so as they come up don't be afraid and I hope you're and that's what i'm going to repeat this because this is so true number four encourage a culture of transparency and accountability within the organization where employees feel empowered to report any suspicious suspicious suspicious activities yeah that's a great one.

[00:26:16] Number five utilize reputable accounting and payroll services to ensure accurate and timely processing of financial transactions and tax filings is a good one people don't think about this but if you might be a small business or maybe you're a big business and you want to save money and you feel like your accountants or your payroll service of charging you.

[00:26:36] You're going to be able to save too much money now you're going to go with shaders and over here dot com because he's giving you the best price oh crazy Eddie right like rock bottom prices and you may not want to do that with a you may not want to do that with your business right you may not want to go with an unproven.

[00:26:59] Unproven payroll processor that's why there's like the big four and payroll process that's why they stay the big for because they're so they have so much credibility they have you know they're so established so it's but there are.

[00:27:13] Thousands and thousands of other processing companies out there shout out to valor payroll for for being one of the best out there her Christina's and Valor's business model is beyond reproach there are other good ones but you want to get some establish you want to get references you want to get a lot of references in the case of a vendor not just three like your hire somebody you may want five or six or seven you may want to list the clients that they can call you can call these the things that you can ask when you're vetting your event.

[00:27:43] And you may want to get a vendor right also check out Anita Latins book on how to pick your next payroll there's great information and that all these things so that's what it really means we take it for granted oh of course I'm going to use a good pair of not everybody's thinking that we for folks want to save money and get burned.

[00:27:59] And also you want to make sure you pick the right payroll service or accounting service for your specific business and your specific environment what made way for company a may not work for.

[00:28:12] That's a great call out makes me think of as we do in this as we've done this show i've learned that there are like two specific payrolling services out there that they only do payroll for this to like construction doesn't construction I don't know the names of the payroll services sorry.

[00:28:29] But they only do construction payroll and I know there's one that only does trucking payroll they only do it for the truck industry they only do it for construction industries so that may you know maybe helpful for you but not if you're in.

[00:28:43] Finance you know that may not be your right don't pick them that's what what means be specific about make sure that the vendor you're picking fits the needs be specific about it be intentional about it right just just Google the one for construction it literally says.

[00:28:59] The top one that came up with payroll the number for construction.

[00:29:05] And there's a good yep there's there's specifically for construction yep there it is there it is and the last one is staying formed about changes in tax laws and regulations to ensure compliance and mitigate the risk of unintentional violations that's a great call out because.

[00:29:23] Hey we're talking about fraud here, but there could be things that you get hit for.

[00:29:28] And you didn't even know what you just like what oh my gosh we didn't know and that happens that's why it's tough again I talk about this all the time and i'm sure any HR and payroll folks at interview for work.

[00:29:40] If they're getting good questions one of those questions got to be how do you stay on top of compliance.

[00:29:46] And the answer is for me is you have to be intentional about it there's no easy there's no easy button for it because even if.

[00:29:55] You subscribe to a service or anything like that that provides you with the information you have to fact check and double check it not so much double check it or fact check it but you have to make sure that it hasn't changed because of the timing.

[00:30:07] Because the legislation changes so yeah so those were the preventative steps.

[00:30:13] And now this all got me thinking right it got me thinking about we we do these folks i'm i promise you when we started out doing true payroll crimes we thought it would be like a fun mini series that would quickly run out of content.

[00:30:31] Boy where we roll yes there is no end to the content that is out there because these fools out here trying to steal there's no end to this the criminality of it all.

[00:30:46] And i'm like it's the temptation yeah it's the temptation and and and that's a good call out thank you for saying that because.

[00:30:54] That is a that's another thing that we see in these cases that trends is it's either business owners.

[00:31:01] That fall to the temptation or it's payroll professionals that could be HR professionals to that don't have good oversight you leave them in a position of power that.

[00:31:18] You think oh i trust Michael man over here i trust him he's the president i trust him and blah blah.

[00:31:24] They've been doing payroll for forever they've been doing per if ever oh my goodness yeah forever 70 million dollars later this though so.

[00:31:32] And i said i said well what are some of the are there any common traits.

[00:31:39] For criminals right got all like criminal minds on it right now that's one of my one of the I do love that stuff so i was like what are the common traits are there any and what are there so yeah actually are according to a 2021 study.

[00:31:54] Some psychological traits that are associated with criminality include psychopathy which I guess psychopath is a lot of stuff low self control and.

[00:32:06] Difficult temperament um yeah so other psychological factors that have been linked to criminal behavior include mental illness.

[00:32:18] Impulsivity I guess being impulsive right affect I don't know what that means negative affect the lack of empathy I know what that means but.

[00:32:28] yeah and anti social personalities yes so according to the national Institute of justice people who have experienced prolonged trauma.

[00:32:39] And have adopted emotional detachment as a coping mechanism are more likely to become repeat criminal offenders.

[00:32:47] So it's something as HR professionals if you're evaluating your staff.

[00:32:53] These are some of the things that if they pop up is red flags right so manager yeah man thank you for doing that because we've always said that we.

[00:33:03] What what under what's thinking you say it all the time every time we do this show you're.

[00:33:09] I looked at my Google two things I go go psychopathy and I go go get negative affect so psychopathy is a mental health condition that involves anti social behavior.

[00:33:21] And impaired empathy and remorse and bold disinhibited or egotistical traits wow okay negative negative affect is a personality trait.

[00:33:37] That involves experiencing negative emotions and poor self concept.

[00:33:44] Wow yeah wow yeah folks we just we it gets it gets very interesting um something yes so what sounds like a lot of these things when people decide to do this maybe there might be depression involved there might be something that's negatively impacting their mental.

[00:34:05] Space in that moment that they're just like you know what.

[00:34:09] Bump it i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and take this risk and I operate in a silo nobody's checking it anyway i Michael man's case he was he controlled everything he processed payroll he was the one who submitted the.

[00:34:23] A. C. H. Files he was the one who did all the interactions with the banks if you remember the case like he did everything in a silo and there was no.

[00:34:34] checks and balances in place nobody to hold them accountable during that time so yeah thank you for sharing that bro.

[00:34:40] Yeah no problem right just got me they guess I just got me thinking about these things because like you said every time we talk about true parochrome you like what are these people thinking about oh man so crazy.

[00:34:52] Oh yeah any who if not analysis talk let's move into our last segment of the show as we close out our safe talk segment.

[00:35:00] And today's safe talk question is should the government do more for victims of crimes like the one Michael man committed.

[00:35:11] So really tough question so remember they did pass legislation as we know they did but.

[00:35:18] Those some of those employees as we read on those business people are still waiting for reimbursement.

[00:35:27] So that's my point should more be done for them because these people's lives changed like some of these people yeah this is closed.

[00:35:39] Right and if I remember correctly and I for I remember correctly the bigger banks were the ones who.

[00:35:46] Because they had the lawyers and the firepower to go in and get their money first to go you need to give us our money first and they left the little people are the common people hanging.

[00:35:58] Yeah it was the big banks got their money first.

[00:36:01] So should I was like that was the reason I wrote this question because I'm like and if you can tell my answer is leading towards yes I feel like I don't necessarily know of the government.

[00:36:15] Should yeah I myself.

[00:36:18] Yeah I hear you but there should be something that could be done for these people.

[00:36:22] I know we talked about having payroll insurance and stuff like that and those different things to cover the best stuff but what about the employees employees don't

[00:36:31] is there an assurance to cover for you if this happens to you as an employee that's exact that's exactly what I was thinking of is some type of insurance that could be mandated.

[00:36:43] And I got to imagine there's some insurance but yeah it's something for them exactly right something for the employees not for the employer like yeah you're going to give them their employer has it but what did employees get is very interesting it's good.

[00:37:01] Yeah it's a tough question because because then we get into folks who don't like a lot of the government involvement big brother and stay out of my business and stuff like that.

[00:37:12] But then hey if you lose your paycheck and nobody can pay you back I bet you want somebody to help know and that's why it gets tough with these questions of when of government involvement because we get into again when there's not a political show but we have to talk about some of the things that go into the politics of it because it impacts our lives and yeah it's tough man and I would hope that there's something out there that.

[00:37:38] I just go to and I didn't see the thing for the employee wow like because I know that would help insurance you have like short term disability launch but that's if you get hurt or something like that you can't work.

[00:37:51] But you got to get it though because that's not all companies give it to you for free you got to actively get it and pay for it shoot if insurance people are listening I think payroll insurance has a big opportunity folks for the employee and for the employer.

[00:38:07] Yeah because think about it that I may pay a few bucks a month to right having for whatever reason for whatever for whatever reason I don't get my paycheck and look at the full look at the a few weeks ago or months ago when the direct deposits were late.

[00:38:25] Yes bro with the credit unions yeah there's opportunity there folks all my all my entrepreneurial payroll folks I listen to the show.

[00:38:35] chime in send me send us an inbox on LinkedIn are there anything's out there can there be something developed like how hard is it to create these insurance policies because again I would right I would pay imagine if you could pay a few dollars a month

[00:38:52] to cover these incidents now of course there have to be some guard rails around because it's right but

[00:38:59] and it's got to be and it's got to work right because in the case with the direct deposit that didn't happen on time you would want folks to be able to submit claims and get money immediately really quick so this has to I know this has it doesn't I know it's got to be guard rails and things but it sounds like a really good idea and opportunity

[00:39:19] and you may say oh well Brian save money that's why you have savings for 70% listen it paycheck to paycheck 70% Americans the paycheck to paycheck what was it 60% of Americans don't even have a thousand dollars.

[00:39:34] yeah folks I know but we could definitely where we're a subscription maximization we could definitely pay a few dollars a month.

[00:39:43] I'm guilty of it because I had to connect to next to clown counts.

[00:39:52] I had to put you out there no it's true because think about it that imagine the point I the reason I'm telling myself or being vulnerable with that is because

[00:40:03] imagine if I put that money because I was still able to live and have my had the food and everything I needed and my and power on and stuff like that but imagine if I put some of those extra funds that I'm losing out on into pay insurance that is available for me.

[00:40:22] And that can be a backup because how many people have the gym membership that's just running and running right now and they just pay it like month of a month and year at the year.

[00:40:31] Yep that's right that's right and like you said we could put that money toward an insurance to so forget about anybody else taking care of us we can take care of ourselves.

[00:40:44] Yes cover our cover home pay in the event because what if somebody gets had look the hat man we're we're really at the intersection of a need right and I don't know a threat because what do we talk about cybercrime as it oh my gosh I was just a victim of cybercrime very recently they hit me for a yep yep you too I think we didn't even know I told what he was like oh me too they just

[00:41:13] killed me for a bunch of dollar saying that's how they get you they'll start with like 33 cents and or a penny a dollar and I had two transactions it was one for 33 cents and one for 11 dollars and 33 cents and it wasn't us you know it was fraud.

[00:41:31] You gotta go through the exercise of shutting your cards down get a new cars and as cybercrime continues to grow it's been estimated to grow to 10 trillion dollars by next year.

[00:41:44] From three trillion a few years ago like an exponential growth and AI has something to do with that technology has something to do with that but everything is being digitized all this stuff so we're like at an intersection of need and threat where.

[00:42:00] We could really use something like this because of that like oh hello some company i'm not even going to put them out there like that but some company just got held ransom cyber attack paid twenty two million dollars in Bitcoin and it's still not solved.

[00:42:17] And I think we report it's that I think it's the same one we already reported on this is real so imagine if you work for a company that just got cyber attack they have no money to pay you how you living.

[00:42:29] Are you living how are you going to get to your next paycheck how are you going to pay your bills because most of us 70% falling that category where we're not we don't have a solve we don't have the savings we don't have the backup we don't have six months of operation money saved.

[00:42:45] Are you crazy we're living out here we out here yolo living the American dream rather go to the club and go pay our rent.

[00:42:52] Hey what happened i'm we're at a point is like a high moment because i'm like what we're going to follow up on this but also payroll professionals if there's something out there exists already let us know because I can't think of it right now that safe.

[00:43:07] yeah yes i imagine that imagine how you would feel if your employer got hacked to your point or if you get let go like hey company has layoff and you haven't done the research to look on the site and know that the layoff is coming.

[00:43:21] It surprises you right and you're that employee that falls into that percentage that doesn't have the thousand dollars saved up.

[00:43:28] Imagine like having put being put put in money into some type of insurance some type of fund to protect yourself later on down the road and be like oh man at least I have two or three months worth of funds to like survive off of so I can pay my my my mortgage I can pay my rent I can provide groceries for my family and I can have unemployment.

[00:43:52] As well as if i'm let go if i'm fired yeah and then I can have unemployment to help me mitigate some of those things as well imagine those things I know unemployment is out there but most people can't survive it's not enough no it's not enough and it's helpful for sure.

[00:44:07] But it's definitely not enough and yeah and i think it's a i think it's something there for folks i don't think i don't i think it would be hard for a startup to accomplish this because you need money out the gate.

[00:44:17] Because you might get somebody that you might get people sign up yeah you need it's capital intensive because the first month you get folks to sign up they may get they may be a victim of some type of fraud and they may need to draw a claim on it and I get it is guardrails and i don't know i'm not a i'm not that financial wizard that can figure that part out but i think i don't know i have some ideas sometimes sometimes sometimes.

[00:44:45] That was a lot of people for green right yeah that the government there should be something else even if it's not the government but there should be something else for sure.

[00:44:58] And shoot we may want to shoot a poll out there to link then or something see if there's something maybe we're missing it maybe there is something else but yeah definitely a great conversation great and very interesting topic very interesting conversation to have.

[00:45:11] But yeah hit us out folks who do we got we we do have somebody that a next show plan for it's about payroll Jeffrey Nathdo nice.

[00:45:24] Yeah we got them on the next show Jeffrey Nathdo is going to be on a next show he's a human resources leader and we're definitely gonna have some good conversation with Jeffrey Nathdo is let's see here.

[00:45:42] Yeah.

[00:45:44] Yeah long time human human resource professional and we're going to definitely learn some stuff from him look out for that next show folks.

[00:45:54] All right so yeah that it I think that's it.

[00:45:59] Yeah that's it.

[00:46:00] Until the next time we love you.

[00:46:03] Peace.

[00:46:04] Peace.

[00:46:11] Before we sign off here are a couple quick thanks don't forget to follow it's about payroll on LinkedIn and this about your paycheck on Facebook and tick-tock.

[00:46:21] Thank you for being a part of our payroll community and thank you for being a part of this journey with us until next time keep learning keep growing and most importantly keep going.