Phone calls have been pouring at the headquarters of Visiting Angels, a home healthcare provider in Albany. Visiting Angels serve four counties in the Capital Region. The unexplained closure of a Clifton Park-based payroll company led to a financial riptide as this company is responsible for processing the paychecks of thousands of employees nationwide, most of these employees reportedly being caretakers for the elderly and disabled. Managers at Visiting Angels have been visiting the homes of employees for offering paper checks, cash and groceries to help them survive this financial disturbance. Visiting Angels co-owner Robert Croan stated that he cannot understand how the company is going to recover these losses.
MyPayrollHR announced its sudden closure with an automated message being sent out to its 4000 clients saying that it would be unable to process further payments and urging the clients to look for alternative methods. The Payroll processor did not just work with senior care service providers but also worked with a bakery, a freight company and a ballroom dance company however several senior care franchise owners have stated that a salesperson at MyPayrollHR had aggressively sought their business by offering incentives and promising reliability.
The after-effects of this sudden closure were reversing of paychecks twice or thrice a day witnessed by the workers nationwide. A similar incident occurred at a caregiving agency at California where employees claimed that their accounts witnessed withdrawals twice or more leading to their accounts becoming null or negative according to Jacinda Perez, the company’s manager.
Flor Patricia Carr, a worker at a home care franchise in Texas that was a client of MyPayroll HR stated that her family had saved up to purchase their first home and had spent an entire year building up their credit only to find out that her paycheck was withdrawn from her bank account thrice leaving her with a negative balance and overdraft fees.
The managing partner of the Texas franchise has claimed that he is working to establish a line of credit with a commercial bank to cover up the funds that have been deducted from his employees.
Overnight a Facebook group for “Victims of MyPayrollHR” became active over which more than 1300 members swapped tips on which banks to use and shared links about how to file a complaint with the state Attorney General’s office or the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Melanie O’Malley, the owner of O’Malley’s Oven and a moderator of the Facebook group said that there has been a huge impactful ripple effect and that all the news outlets and the attorney general are collecting reports from the Facebook group. According to a report published by Value Market Research, the rise in the geriatric population, increased awareness regarding health, an increase in the expenditure towards healthcare and increasing count of the population suffering from immobility, chronic illness is driving the home healthcare market growth.
However, as the community of disturbed business owners and employees is growing online, several queries remain regarding the closure of the company such as whether the company’s owner Michael Mann was under investigation, why he was unreachable and why the bank associated with MyPayrollHR reversed paychecks of the employees in bulk. Law enforcement entities and the state Department of Financial Services have begun looking for answers and potential culprits.
Naira Shekhawat has been into Content Writing just after completing her Graduation in English Literature. Her love for words has won her many accolades in her respective jobs ever since. Naira covers business sections for VMR News. She is a traveller by heart and loves writing on food blogs as a freelancer.