Dear Compliance Man,<\/p>\n
I recently got a mailing from you folks and it showed me working on a construction project way out in\u00a0Worcester. Well, I\u2019ve never worked out there. So why would my name show up on some project that I\u2019ve\u00a0never worked on?<\/p>\n
— Confused in Canton<\/p>\n
Dear Confused,<\/p>\n
Unfortunately the situation you described happens all too often.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how it works: Massachusetts requires every contractor who works on public construction projects to submit certified payrolls to the state<\/a>, showing who\u2019s working on the project and how much they\u2019re getting paid. Some contractors pad their payrolls with fake names to avoid paying the legally-mandated wage. Some of these ghost workers are just that\u2014ghosts\u2014but others are like you, real folks who are listed on projects they\u2019ve never worked on.<\/p>\n So what does it mean for you? Other than an unpleasant surprise, not much. But for the employer who misused your name, it\u2019s likely to mean all sorts of trouble. Contractors who pad their payrolls with \u201cghosts\u201d often have plenty to hide, and the Attorney General won\u2019t hesitate to look into this contractor\u2019s story.<\/p>\n Thanks for writing!<\/p>\n For more commonly asked Compliance Man questions, visit the\u00a0Compliance Man archives<\/a>. Send your question to\u00a0info@ffcm.org<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Compliance Man, I recently got a mailing from you folks and it showed me working on a construction project way out in\u00a0Worcester. Well, I\u2019ve never worked out there. So why would my name show up on some project that I\u2019ve\u00a0never worked on? — Confused in Canton Dear Confused, Unfortunately the situation you described happens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[43,46,51,30],"class_list":["post-792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compliance-man","tag-accounting","tag-fraud","tag-payroll","tag-wages","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions\/846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}