For all who said to let it go – would you feel the same way if the money you spent ended up being the only money you had (i.e. you lost your job a few weeks later)? If you really needed that money now, would you want this guy to get away with his dishonesty? What if he hurt someone else you know? Forgetting about all that, should anybody be allowed to get away with cheating you? Anyone who has an ounce of self-esteem would NEVER want someone like that to feel he got away with it. HE COMMITTED A CRIME AGAINST YOU! And probably, he did so knowingly and deliberately.
My husband worked for a Yeshivah that knowingly wrote him three worthless paychecks after months of not paying him at all. Meanwhile all the people who ran the Yeshivah were going to their summer homes in the mountains, while we almost lost our house due to non-payment of the mortgage! THAT was something we should have ignored???????? Yes it was aggravating, but we took them to a DT after a year of trying to speak with the people in charge to rectify this avla. They refused to accept delivery of our certified letters. If my husband had owned a business and things were tight, he would still make sure his staff was paid before he took a penny for himself. The halacha is very clear on the obligations of an employer towards an employee. BTW, although we prevailed in the DT, the Yeshivah cried poor and wanted us to settle for a fifth of what was owed, even though it was l’chatchilah illegal for them to write a check against an account that has no funds. Had we gone to civil court we could have “owned” that Yeshivah. But this also would have been a terrible chillul. At least that Yeshivah saw that they didn’t just get to walk all over my husband without a reaction. In the end we decided to drop the situation for personal reasons, but we had made our point and won the DT. I would not want to be any of those baalei batim after 120 years when Hashem asks them if they dealt honestly with their employees. All of them were heimische, too.