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Comment by chrisbaker98 | Hacker News Reader

> And the reason it is being called fraud is because he is probably misrepresenting his circumstances

The reason it's being called fraud is because it is fraud. How could it not be? Every full-time contract I've ever had had a clause stipulating that it would be my only employment. If I'd had another job and my boss found out, that would be grounds for instant dismissal.

My wife works in the legal department of a FAANG company and she says this has actually become a big problem for them since the pandemic and the shift to remote work. They've fired a bunch of people after discovering they were "overemployed", and they're increasingly vigilant about it and on the lookout for employees who might be doing it. So if you want to try it yourself, don't assume you won't get caught.

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Breech of contract isn’t the same thing as fraud.

A full time employment contract doesn’t preclude other things which take up significant time such as volunteering, or parenthood. Companies want exclusivity to increase their bargaining position, but they simply fire most of these people rather than sue for damages because it’s difficult to prove any harm.

If you are charging two companies for 40 hours per week of work, while only working 20 hours per week for each of them, then that is fraud by any reasonable definition of the word.

Are we suddenly counting people who show up and only give a partial effort? I am not sure you are prepared for how deep this rabbit hole goes.

So I guess all those companies paying for 40 hours and getting 50 or 60 should be charged charged with fraud?

If your employer expects you to work 50 or 60 hours while only paying you for 40 hours then that is indeed also illegal.

I take it you've never had a salary pay job in America. One of my recent jobs had me working 100 hours per week for $130k (base salary). Every job I've ever had expected overtime without extra pay. One job had me working through every holiday without bonus. I've had some shitty jobs, but it wasn't illegal for them to demand this out of me.

For anyone working crazy hours and getting paid salary while having zero sense of control, it's worth checking if you're misclassified as exempt:

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/exempt-and-a-non-exempt-empl...

If you work with computers, or are above 100k and any part of the job is executive, administrative, or professional, you're probably not, though.

have looked into this for myself and i'm definitely exempt from being paid overtime.

i now take these unreasonable demands as a sign that the employer wants me to quit.

My contract says that I'm expected to work Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm with a one hour lunch break (so 40 hours) but it also has some vague, ambiguous language about "occasionally" working "additional hours" as business demands it. So they can make me work 50-60 hours in one week and it wouldn't breach my contract.

That assumes you are working 20 hours at each, plenty of people work 80+ hour weeks.

Well now we're just arguing semantics, but here's Dictionary.com's definition of fraud: "deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage."

I don't know if getting a second job wouldn't be fraud in a strict legalistic sense, but it definitely meets the above definition.

Anyway, if you wanna do it, go ahead. I'm not going to risk it myself, but I've worked at plenty of companies which were badly-enough run that I can imagine getting away with this kind of behaviour. I've also worked for employers who treated me like garbage, so I can understand why some people might have no objection to treating their employer like garbage.

When someone is saying 'fraud', I think most people are talking specifically about a criminal offence of some kind.

fraud: wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.

If you sign a full-time contract and claim that you are only working a single job, while holding down multiple jobs then you are lying for financial gain.

But it’s such a vague statement that it could actually apply to lots of things.

Like say advertisements.

Say dating.

Say pretty much everything that happens all the time.

The definition of fraud you use is overly general.

I'm pretty sure a lot of what is described would fall under fraud in most jurisdictions if these things are in either of the contracts, as they tend to be in mine.

1. Length of hours worked per week and work start and end - if you are supposed to be working in times between 8 and 17 with a total of 37.5 hours worked per week if you do a couple 1 hour meetings between 9 and 16 for employer B every day then you have defrauded employer A because it would be impossible for you to make that 37.5 hours between 8 and 17 they are paying you for. You have deceived the company that you are working for them and receiving compensation while working for another company. It's pretty open and shut in legal terms and no but what about lying to a date pontificating is going to change that.

2. Do the contracts with companies have clauses about how they own everything you product technology wise while working for them?

on edit: changed time usage from American to Military Time / European in one instance so all usages were aligned.

Perhaps you could provide another reasonable definition of fraud to support an argument that this behavior is not fraudulent?

I don’t care what the contract says. If all of my employers are satisfied with my work, I don’t feel any remorse.

Employment contracts are part of the game. Overemployment is part of the metagame :-)

Until you fail to deliver something on time, employer gets angry and either fires you or worse finds out about you breaching contract and sues.

Then you would be paying through the nose and lawyering up. I know exactly of one such case only, though. I live in EU, and heard it was resolved by mediation but expensive for the party who breached it.

I heard about a few more cases where someone was caught illegally subcontracting. These also tend to be much cleaner.

If you do it smart they won’t be able to prove any wrongdoing. E.g. your second job should be contract work through your own offshore LLC, so you won’t show up in The Work Number and similar databases.

A different evasion tactic could be getting paid in crypto.

In many countries terms of what you are doing outside of contract as long as not as it does no harm are null n void. YMMV

> Every full-time contract I've ever had had a clause stipulating that it would be my only employment.

I, the opposite. I'm explicit that I plan to work other jobs and work it into the contract. Nobody really cares; or at least aren't in a position to display care. If you're paying $200k-type salaries, you've already shown your cards that you're desperate!

The only time I experienced a little back and forth was one organization that had obligations to their customers for the workers not be engaged in work at other companies for data security reasons, with a formal rule that workers not work anywhere else to cover their bases, but as I like to do my other work in unrelated industries it was crafted as an exception without much trouble.

2 out of 6 of the engineers we hired this year were overemployed and never mentioned it till we worked it out. One was just straight up kinda useless, the other was manipulative and a smooth talker and was good at claiming having a hand in others work when he did very little, think he was working at least 3 jobs.

Not sure if it’s just our hiring is kinda useless but I’d be very reluctant to agree to anyone full WFH after being burned, risk isn’t worth burning time or money for.

How did you find it out? Were you able to unambiguously prove that they were doing it?

I imagine it also opens up legal issues if a person was employed by both Company A and Company B, and Company A decides to sue Company B.

Also, how can a company be sure that ideas an employee gave, was developed by the employee and not just copied from another company?

> Every full-time contract I've ever had had a clause stipulating that it would be my only employment

I'm not a lawyer, but I wouldn't be surprised if that kind of clause isn't legal in California and maybe even other states.

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