FedEx tries to recall 8,500 faulty W-2s

[question everything]

FedEx tries to recall 8,500 faulty W-2s

Associated Press
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

FedEx Freight West officials are scrambling to recall W-2s sent to as many as 8,500 employees after learning that some of the forms also included other workers' tax information. Up to 1,100 workers in the Los Angeles-Orange County area could be affected.

"The company's very concerned and taking it very seriously," said Sally Davenport, a spokeswoman at the company's Memphis, Tenn., headquarters.

She said the company learned about the problem on Tuesday when employees started reporting that one segment of their W-2s included another worker's W-2, including Social Security number, pay and tax information.

The company isn't sure how it happened, although they think their internal processing center, which was responsible for printing and mailing the W2s, may have misaligned the forms so that they weren't cutting off at the proper place.

http://www.dailybulletin.com/business/ci_3479075

[napi21]

1. How in the hell could this have happened?

Are their IT people that bad that they didn't MAKE SURE the job was printing correctly?

For as good as they are at shipping, tracking, and customer service, I can't believe they screwed up this bad!

Anybody out there looking for a job in IT ops, I bet there's a couple of openings!

[TacticalPeek]

2. Payroll is a trivial application and hardly anybody pays it any attention.

:evilgrin:

[napi21]

4. I realize that's how many Co's look at it.

They consider any "expense Dept." an evil cost of doing business, and only pay attention to those that "Make the Profit"!

But as a former Director of Accounting, you really don't want to piss off 1,100+ employees!!!!

[TacticalPeek]

6. I should have used sarcasm tags.

:)

I have always found payroll, particularly the checks and W-2's, to be the most highly audited of all office output. Change from a table to a percent calculation, and anyone whose check changed a nickle will want to know what's wrong with the computer now. And that applies to everyone from mail clerk to CEO, so I've always made PR numero uno on the priority list. If the printers need working on or a new security setup needs implementing, any day but payroll day.

[davidinalameda]

3. oops

dumbasses

[melm00se]

5. having been involved in the

tax reporting side of a corporation (meetings upon meetings upon meetings about W-2's, all the various 1099's etc ad nauseum), I can see how this happens. All if takes is the printer to get out of synch for an instant and then off it goes...

One year, during a test run with the new printers and paper supplier, we test printed 42000 1099's, of which about 10,000 were OK and the rest slowly progressed to uselessness.

If you are thinking "why doesn't Fedex to test runs like you?"...well I am confident that they don't produce nearly as many tax documents as my old company (we would run thru 3 containers, that is 18 wheeler trailers, full of paper, every year) so it may not have come up as something to do.