Salesboi

Director of Sales

Company is asking me for money back

EDIT:

told them I wouldn't be paying it back. onto the next gig!

I got my soon-to-be old company to sponsor my membership to a sales network which provided leadership training. membership started in July. Company is now asking for that investment ($750) back because I'm leaving to get a promotion elsewhere.

I spoke to an employment lawyer and he said they have no legal grounds to do this, but they could give a shitty referral of me in the future to prospective companies. what should I do?

old company is asking for $750 of L&D courses back from me as i exit, what should i do?

Attached poll

tell them to fuck off (lawyer approved) pay it and move on to not risk bad referrals in the future

*Voting in this poll no longer yields commission.

🧠 Advice

😤 Conflict Resolution

😳 Ethics

31 comment

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RealPatrickBateman

Politicker

🔪Amateur Butcher🔪

We DO NOT negotiate with terrorists, marketing, or former companies.

DrunkenArt

Politicker

Sales Representative

If a company is worried about $750, they've got some much larger issues to tackle.

InQ5WeTrust

Arsonist

No marketing, mayo isn't an MQL

Tell them to fuck off.

If they're pulling that card I doubt the quality of the reference they'd give.

Shitty move.

You can always reference a friend at that company that you worked with and management elsewhere.

Save your bag, let them stew.

One caveat is it depends on internal policies. Some have a yearly training budget and do mention clawback.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Totally right. If they're this damn petty then don't expect kind words in the future.

LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

It surprises me how many companies miss on stupid little things like this. Imagine if you put this little nugget of knowledge front and center on Glassdoor, I know for me it would immediately make me second guess my application or job offer acceptance.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Tell em to suck it. The end.

goose

Politicker

Sales Executive

Threatening you with not doing something they aren't going to do is a shitty position to take. You are moving on without their referral. All you'll need going forward is for them to validate that you worked there. Fuck them.

hh456

Celebrated Contributor

sales

I’d be like, “nah.”

Jewcan_Sam81

Politicker

Account Executive

That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, what a bunch of a holes

Salesboi

Valued Contributor

Director of Sales

Yea it’s kinda crazy. I got this email from them and was like, dafuq is this lol

Jewcan_Sam81

Politicker

Account Executive

I would’ve spent an inordinate amount of time searching for the perfect meme on company time to then send them the message to go screw themeelves

Jbeans

Opinionated

Director of Sales

Perfect memes take time. I get it .

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Tell them to get lost...

cw95

Politicker

Head of SDR

Does your contract say anything stating you have to pay this? If not, send them an invoice for wasting your time.

Salesboi

Valued Contributor

Director of Sales

It doesn’t

whathaveyousoldtomorrow

Acclaimed Answer

sales

ehhh if your agreement for the company is they pay L&D if you stay, and you leave they don't- pay em back. If it isn't written down somewhere - have em kick rocks.

Just like, do the right thing...

Salesboi

Valued Contributor

Director of Sales

It’s not written down anywhere

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

You should tell anyone else at the company that took the course with you to expect to pay it back if they EVER leave.

Salesboi

Valued Contributor

Director of Sales

I think I then become a slanderer and I can get sued unfortunately

alecabral

Arsonist

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

You did the right thing getting lawyering up. The only way they could have pulled that one on you was if you had signed something that said you were supposed to give it back if you left in the following 12 months of paying for that or something. No paper, no legal action.

If they do insist, just send them your lawyer's bill. And if you do get a poor review, counter back with either the same coin (you can review them too after all), or more legal trouble. They'll back down. They just can't believe you found a job that's better/makes you happier than what they offer and they can't stand it for who cares what reason.

UserNotFound

Politicker

Account Executive

I have laughed about this like 3 times today... I wonder how bad it must have felt to say that? Like, dude if you're at me about $750 you must need it more than I do- glad you're leaving before a paycheck bounces.

Jbeans

Opinionated

Director of Sales

This is some BS. It’s a hard no with f you and flip off as you leave the buildings

do you want a reference from these guys? Seriously as a person who hires/interviews, if you told me straight up you left and they did this? I’d not expect them to be a good reference anyway. It’s actually a story I would love to hear in an interview. I’d laugh and be like wow dodged a bullet there huh?
Investing into training your staff is a risk and a cost companies take. I’m sure there’s some Steve jobs quote I can find on this .. it would be perfect. Let’s pretend I used it. Thanks 🙏🏻 😂 and ps. Good luck on the new job!!

Salesboi

Valued Contributor

Director of Sales

Thank you! So glad to hear this, I was super worried about the next job because of this. Super stoked to be out of there and in to the next role, thank you!

SaaSData

Catalyst

VP of SaaS & Unit Economics 🏴‍☠️

The only answer here is, no.

ChumpChange

Politicker

Channel Manager

Good luck with that.

Salesboi

Valued Contributor

Director of Sales

Thank you

ATX_Seller

Executive

Cat Herder

Tell them to write a formal request, fold it up, and shove it up their ass.

Congrats on the new gig.

Salesboi

Valued Contributor

Director of Sales

That’s basically what I did

SuperSaaSd

Executive

SDR

Came here from email highlight but yes, don't give them anything back, you don't owe them shit! If anything, the previous co does own that membership and should take it up with their billing dept to have it refunded pro-rated or other, not your jam.

If you're worried about negative feedback/reviews from said previous co, my suggestions it to come clean to the prospective new co and explain they're trying to sully your rep because they asked for the funds back from something that is work-related training.

That all being said, I wouldn't access the resource anymore since you didn't technically pay for it.

dcarb

Good Citizen

Account Manager

I can't remember ever having a company actually call to get a reference but I'm sure it happens. HR departments will typically not give anything other than verification of the dates that you worked there. They don't want to get sued. I wouldn't worry about it. My old company tried to get all of the sales people to sign a document that gave the company the right to "claw back" the money that they were going to spend on us to attend Sales Kickoff in Vegas one year. It was worth about $8k. The HR manager was a friend of mine and I told her I wasn't about to sign that shit and I wouldn't be attending if that was the case. The tickets were already bought and everything was scheduled so I knew there was something fishy about it. She told me that she couldn't make me sign it and said don't worry about it. As it turns out mgmt had found out thru the rumor mill that one of our SE's was planning to leave and go to another company and so they sent this out to shake things up. That person elected not to go to Sales Kickoff and quit a couple of weeks later.

My point is this...if you signed something that gives the company the right to claw back this money then you might be stuck like Chuck. But it you didn't, they are just being assholes and trying to scare you. My old company had our Cisco Engineers sign something that said the employee would pay the company back for training if they left within 2 years of the date of the training. But this makes since IMO for technical roles because the company could spend several thousand dollars on CCIE course training and certification tests and the employee could use that CERT to get more money somewhere else. In that case it makes sense for the company to protect itself from a loss. Good luck!

CourtForShort

Head of HR & Recruiting

Salesboi

Valued Contributor

Director of Sales

They did not