2

I planned on travelling to a city by plane, and stay in a hotel there, for a job interview twice in December 2021. The company asked me to book tickets and stay, and they would reimburse me afterward. I have this on email. The interview was postponed twice by the company due to COVID circumstances. Now I decided to pursue another opportunity, so the interview will not be happening, and I informed them of this. The costs have not been reimbursed now, over a month after I filled in the form the asked me to.

I was in contact with a sr. partner at the company and he has been telling me that he would follow up with their finance department multiple times when I asked, but payment still hasn't happened. I see a few possible next steps:

  • Keep chasing the sr. partner
  • I also had an interview with somebody higher up (C-level). Would it be appropriate to escalate to them at some point?
  • Accept the loss (a couple of hundred euro's, not a big impact for me financially but still hurts)

Any suggestions here on what the best course of action would be? And of course, I have learned my lesson for the future to not book myself and ask for reimbursement later, but have the company make the arrangements.

Improve this question
6
  • 4
    Just from my experience, if this is a larger company then your request will probably keep getting passed around various people who don't know what to do with it or think that it's not their problem. Ultimately if you're persistent and keep asking then your request will probably eventually be fulfilled - but I wouldn't expect anything meaningful to happen for a few months. It depends on how willing you are to put up with the frustration of "please contact X department", wait two weeks, "please contact Y department", and so on. On principle, I wouldn't accept the loss.
    – Touchdown
    Jan 11, 2022 at 9:17
  • Are you willing to consider legal action to reclaim the money?
    – Comic Sans Seraphim
    Jan 11, 2022 at 11:39
  • @Touchdown Yeah that is what I'm afraid of. It's about 1000 employees in 5 countries, so it is pretty big. And I don't want to accept the loss either, indeed out of principle..
    – Jeroen
    Jan 11, 2022 at 11:43
  • @ComicSansSeraphim Ultimately, yes, if the costs would outweigh the benefit, I would consider it. But I would hope it doesn't get to that.
    – Jeroen
    Jan 11, 2022 at 11:44
  • Have you tried calling these individuals? I assume all your previous conversations have been by email.
    – Donald
    Jan 11, 2022 at 12:25

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

I would probably let it go and chuck it up to "Covid Weirdness".

You should get reimbursed but it's an odd case: postponed by the company due to Covid but eventually cancelled by you. I highly doubt that there an existing policy for that specific set of circumstances so this will make it very difficult to get your reimbursement. It's an exception and you need to find someone in the company who is capable and authorized to handle this.

You may get it back but it's likely to require a lot of time and effort. I strongly recommend against taking legal action: this will damage the relationship beyond repair and may damage your professional reputation as well. It's probably also not worth it in terms of time and money.

Lesson learned: in these crazy times, travel planning requires extra consideration. Buy flex or refundable tickets, and hotel bookings & car with free cancellation. Discuss upfront with the employer how Covid related cancellations or delays will be managed.

Improve this answer
0

Yes, escalate to the person you interviewed with and give the company a deadline to reimburse you. Bug them as often as you can until they actually do something. Tell the world they owe you hundreds of euros.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .