The woman sent a heartbreaking message to the billionaire, claiming the issue had left her ‘behind on bills’ and ‘crying’
When an Amazon employee bypassed HR and directly contacted Jeff Bezos with a pay dispute, she had no idea what her desperate plea would trigger.
61-year-old Bezos is one of the richest men on Earth, having built Amazon from his garage into the 5th most valuable company in the world, according to Companies Market Cap.
A year before handing the reins of the company to current CEO Andy Jassy in July 2021, the father-of-four received an email from Tara Jones, an Amazon warehouse employee in Oklahoma.
The story goes that Jones was on medical leave and was supposed to receive a $540 paycheck. But when she opened it, she realized a huge chunk was missing.
Jones reported to Amazon officials that she was missing $90 from her wages.
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An Amazon employee messaged Jeff Bezos after she suffered an issue with her pay (Getty Stock Image)
When it happened again, she decided to take matters into her own hands and fired off a personal email to then-CEO Bezos.
In the note, as seen by the New York Times, Jones lamented: “I’m behind on bills, all because the pay team messed up. I’m crying as I write this email.”
Soon, the employee would find out that she wasn’t the only member of staff who had been missing money.
Her email triggered a company-wide investigation, which found 179 other warehouse workers had been underpaid for around 18 months, according to the outlet.
One worker affected by the mistake said they had to have their car repossessed, while others claimed they were fired after the software reported their medical leave as absences.
Meanwhile, it’s reported that doctors’ notes were mysteriously ‘vanishing’ in the system.
In a statement, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told The Independent: “We’re disappointed when any of our employees experience an issue with their leave.
“The New York Times article suggested these issues are widespread and ongoing. They are not.
Some Amazon workers complained they’d been struck off and had their cars repossessed because of the issue (Getty Stock Image)
“We went back and audited the period in question to make sure employees received their pay, and to our knowledge, there are no outstanding issues.
“The controls we’ve implemented over the last 18 months have resulted in less than one percent of people experiencing an issue while being on paid leave.
“Certainly, the unprecedented nature of COVID did put a strain on our system’s ability to keep pace with demand and we’ve been hard at work investing and inventing to do better every day.”
Interestingly, Jones isn’t the only person to go straight to Bezos and get answers almost immediately.
According to a Reddit thread LegalAdviceUK, an Amazon customer revealed that they had been left frustrated after ordering a ‘high value item’ costing them £1,099.97 ($1,480).
It turned out that somehow, the high-value item, protected by a one-time password, had been marked as delivered despite the customer not having it in their possession.
Instead of messing around, they messaged Bezos, and soon heard from an executive customer relations officer, who offered them a full refund and a gift card.
Sometimes it does really pay to go right to the top, huh?
Featured Image Credit: David Ryder/Getty Images / Nathan Stirk/Getty Images
