• Privacy Policy
  • Thrift Store Finds
  • Fresh From The Farm
  • Craft Projects
    • Pinterest Party
    • Aprons
    • Quilting
    • Fabric
    • Sewing
    • Tutorials
    • Beads
    • Crafts
    • Jewelry
  • Shop & Support Me!
    • Shop Gluten Free on Amazon.com
    • Shop Omaha Steaks
    • Schwan’s Home Delivery on Amazon.com
    • Maryland Crabs
  • Book Shelf
    • Adult Fiction
    • Children’s Books
    • Cookbooks
    • Craft & Sewing
    • Gardening
    • Non Fiction
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Good food, good company, good advice from Grandma

  • Home
  • Contact
    • About
      • About My Header
    • Hi, PR. What can I do for you?
    • Disclosure
    • Giveaway Rules: Please Read Them
    • Privacy Policy
    • Follow Me! Social Media Links
    • Recognition & Awards
    • FabGrandchildren
  • Gluten Free
  • The House
    • Getting Pre-Approved
    • Finding The One
    • The Loan Application
    • Closing The Loan
    • Fixing It Up
    • Thrift Store Finds
    • The Yard & Garden
  • Local
  • Travel
    • Campground Reviews
    • Hotel & Motel Reviews
    • Places I Want To Go
    • Alabama
    • Arizona
      • Colorado river
      • Grand Canyon
      • North Rim
    • Arkansas
    • California
    • Colorado
    • Florida
      • Amelia Island
      • Destin
    • Georgia
      • Atlanta
      • Helen
      • Marietta
      • Savannah
      • The Golden Isles
    • Louisana
    • Maryland
    • Mexico
    • Mississippi
      • Tunica
    • Missouri
    • Nevada
    • New Mexico
    • New York
    • North Carolina
    • Oklahoma
    • Pennsylvania
    • Tennessee
    • Texas
    • Utah
    • Virginia
      • Richmond
  • Health
    • Atherosclerosis
    • Chronic Pain
    • COPD
    • Fibromyalgia
    • Ostomy Life
    • PTSD
    • Rosacea
    • Skin Cancer
    • Sleep Apnea
    • Type II Diabetes
  • Recipes
    • Re-Create The Recipe
  • Gift Guides
    • 2016 Holiday Gift Guide
      • 2016 Holiday Gift Guide Sponsors
    • 2015 Holiday Gift Guide
      • 2015 Holiday Gift Guide Sponsors
    • 2014 Gift Guide
    • 2013 Holiday Table Gift Guide
      • Sponsors For Our 2013 Holiday Table Gift Guide
    • 2013 Family Gift Guide
      • 2013 Family Gift Guide Sponsors
    • 2012 Grandma’s Gift Guide
  • Fashion
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Happy Campers At Last!

Karen · 2 Comments

Share
Tweet
Pin
Share
0 Shares


My husband, Jim, and I live full time in a travel trailer and work in campgrounds for a living. We have been doing this for more than six years and really enjoy the work we do.

We subscribe to a magazine called Workamper News (WN). It is a listing of jobs in campgrounds, resorts, marinas, national parks, and other places for people who live in RV’s. We had seen an ad in WN for several years for a campground on a river in Virginia. Their ad offered wages for every hour we worked, a free full hookup site to live on while we worked there, and a completion bonus. To qualify for a completion bonus, you make a commitment to stay a certain length of time on the job, and once you complete your commitment, they pay a bonus equal to 50 cents for each hour that you worked while you were there.

We applied for the job, and went for an in person interview, and were hired for the job in March of last year. We loved working there. In the years that we have done this type of work, that job was the best job we have ever had. We loved the campground, we loved the people we worked with, we loved the people we worked FOR, we loved the people who came there to camp. It was a fun, beautiful place to be. We made an agreement to stay until November 13, 2007, which we did.

While we worked there, I kept a spreadsheet of the hours we worked each pay period, because our bonus was to be calculated based on how many hours we worked. My husband and I used that spreadsheet as a morale booster. Whenever we were tired, or had had a bad day, we would look at the spreadsheet to see how our bonus was adding up. We left on November 15 headed back to Georgia for the winter. We fully expected our bonus to be paid with our last paycheck. It was not.

In December, I called to question when we would receive our bonus. The general manager said he would check on it and call me back. He called me on January 12 to tell me that our bonus would be paid “on the next pay period”. So, we expected to receive it by the end of January.

January 31 came and went with no check received or direct deposit made to our account. I called several times, leaving word each time for the general manager to call me back. No one ever returned the phone calls I made. I was concerned that maybe they had mailed the check and it was lost in the mail. But, we HAD received our W-2 forms from them, so I knew they had the correct address.

I continued to call every so often, always leaving a message for someone to call me, and making sure whoever took the message knew that I was calling because we had not received our bonus check. In March, we were on our way from Georgia to Pennsylvania for our next job, and stopped in Williamsburg so we could visit our daughter and some friends for a few days. We arranged to have dinner with a couple we had made friends with whom we had worked with at the previous job.

Of course, the subject of the bonus came up at dinner. My friend, Lynn, said “You should compare your last paycheck stub with your W-2 form amount.” She did not say why I should, but because she put that little bug in my ear, the first thing I did when we got home was look at the two documents. Yes, the amounts on them WERE different, and the amount of the difference was exactly the amount of the bonus we never received. So, now we not only had not received the bonus, but the employer said we did by showing it on our W-2 form! This fact opened up a whole new problem for me, as I was not going to pay income taxes on money I had never been paid. I was more determined than before to collect that bonus!

The next day, we had breakfast with two other couples we had met while we worked there. I purposely did not want to talk about work with them. I wanted to have a fun, enjoyable breakfast with friends. One of the girls brought up the subject, though, and asked if we had ever received our bonus. I said, “No, we have not, but I am not going to give up on this. We worked for that money, and I intend to get it.”

After we got to our new job, I got a Cingular Wireless Aircard so I could have internet access at my travel trailer. I searched the internet for information on employment law in Virginia. At the Virginia Department of Labor website, I found that if you were promised a bonus before you began the work, the employer is legally obligated to pay it. There was a form there for you to fill out and send in, with whatever documentation you had, showing what was owed you, and the state would help you collect the money. I downloaded a copy of the form and saved it on my computer.

However, first, I had to send a demand for payment letter by certified mail. I wrote the letter, and sent it along with a copy of the ad from WN showing a bonus was offered, a copy of our work contract showing a bonus was offered if we stayed until November 13, a copy of our last paycheck stubs, a copy of our W-2 forms, and a copy of my spreadsheet. I advised them in the letter that they had until March 30 to make payment or we would take further action. I received the signature card back from the post office showing that they had indeed received the letter.

After they received the letter, I got a phone call from the general manager. He asked me “So you are saying that your W-2 reflects that we paid the bonus but you never received it?” I said, “Yes, that is correct.” He told me he would forward the letter to the downtown office. I never heard another word from them. On April 5, I filled out the forms from the Virginia Department of Labor and mailed them in, along with copies of all my documentation, which now included a copy of the letter and a copy of the green card that I got back from the post office. My husband and I were very hopeful that we would have our money soon.

I got the forms back from the Virginia Department of Labor on April 12th, with a form attached that said “Your claim for unpaid wages has been received and reviewed. It is being returned for the reason noted below:

“You had a written employment agreement in place with your employer. Although we are unable to assist you, you may have recourse through the courts”. What? I thought the website said they would help us! What a bunch of crap!

Jim and I discussed this some more. I searched the internet some more, looking this time on the IRS website. I was sure there was SOMETHING we could do that would not involve us actually going to Virginia to file a claim in small claims court. After a lot of research, I found some information on the IRS site about what to do if you have received a fradulent W-2 form. So, the next time we had a day off, Jim and I went to the IRS Service Center in Frederick, Maryland, which was the closest one to us.

When we arrived at the service center, I showed the clerk all the documentation we had and explained to her that we felt we had received fraudulent W-2 forms from our former employer. She looked over the contents of my folder, listened to my story, and finally agreed with me.

She went into another room and called the place we worked last year. We don’t know exactly what she said to them, but when she returned, she told us we would hear from her if she had any news for us. That was one week ago, today.

Yesterday, I had a message on my cellphone to call George, the manager of the IRS Service Center. The message said “We have some new information that sheds new light on your issue.” When I called him back, he told me that he had our bonus checks in his hand and we could come pick them up!

So, after only 5 and half months, 14 unreturned phone calls, a certified letter, 2 forms with copies of everything sent to the Virginia Department of Labor, and two sixty mile round trips to Frederick to the IRS Service Center, we received our long overdue bonus checks today.

When we arrived at the IRS office, all of the employees there came out to the lobby. They were all smiling, and all of them shook our hands. They said it is not very often in the course of their jobs that they can actually make people happy. They usually have to deal with people who were fleeced out of money by their employer and the person had no documentation to back up what they were saying.

The clerk who had handled this for us told me that it was my legwork that helped them help us. She said that if I had not had so much documentation she probably would not have been able to collect the money for us. She said that after talking to us last week they knew that we were honest and were right that our former employer owed us the money. It was so fun to talk to those people. Then we went shopping!

Share
Tweet
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Filed Under: Campgrounds, Life on the road, Workamping

Reader Interactions

Creative Fabrica

Comments

  1. Connie Graves says

    May 7, 2007 at 9:49 pm

    Congratulations on getting your bonus. It’s great that a government agency could and would help you. Too bad you had to go through all that. This is a campground Workampers should not take ads from. Regards, Connie Graves

    Reply
  2. Anonymous says

    May 7, 2007 at 11:57 pm

    Hello, We got Burnt on our Bonus with the Owner on a Verbal Agreement a few years back…The Owner said he neversaid anything about a End of Season Bonus..Now, we all know Workampers do not forget or make that up…The GM tried to help, but he was new and his hands were tied….So we went to Fl. and appied for Unemployment. That got us a phone call from BP…We did collect!!! Unemployment….J & J

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Food Advertising by logo

Become A Fab Follower: Sign Up To Follow Me By Email

Subscribe to my e-mail list

* indicates required

…

Amazon Gift Cards

Target
Food Advertising by logo

Fabgrandma Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

My Most Popular Posts

Search Fabgrandma

Get Inexpensive Bi-focals! Mine were under $50!

Amazon Deals!

My Wish List--Buy Me Something, You Know You Want To!

Read All My Old Posts!

Chat Line Numbers - Find someone interesting to chat with.
AffordablePapers.com
- get your essay written for cheap.
logo
Food Advertisements by
0b22c9a745411b7dff0cf1ced315d669-332

© 2021 · FAB GRANDMA · ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Find Your Influence
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Reject Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.