Gephardt: Businesses Duped Into Buying Workplace Posters
May 1, 2020, 6:13 PM | Updated: Jul 13, 2023, 2:49 pm
SALT LAKE CITY — Would you pay for something that you can get for free? A Salt Lake City business-owner said he has been getting scary notices asking for money for labor posters.
Paul Murphy is a public relations guy who has been working out of his home since long before COVID-19.
Among the piles of paperwork he’s received since registering his business was an official-looking letter describing “increased penalties” for not having updated labor posters.
Murphy said it also had the general appearance of an invoice, but it wasn’t. It came from a company trying to sell the posters for $21.
Utah Labor Commission spokesman Eric Olsen said there is nothing illegal about a company selling labor posters, as long as they are honest about it.
But, why would anyone pay a dime? You can download them and you can print them for free on the Utah Labor Commission’s website.
Still, $21 is actually a deal, comparatively speaking.
In 2017, the Federal Trade Commission shut down a company which it said “conned small businesses into paying for government-required regulatory posters” at a cost of “$179.99 to $189.99.”
Murphy said this isn’t the first letter he’s received, either.
“The good news is I received a notice like this a couple months earlier, and they wanted $90 for the same poster,” he laughed. “So this is a bargain.”
As you probably guessed, Murphy opted not to pay for the posters. He said he wanted this story told for other business owners who might just hand the $21 bill to their secretary without thinking twice.
