A Reddit user shared a troubling employment dilemma involving a former employer who she claims fraudulently forged her digital signature on a legal document to prevent her from starting a new job. She said she followed the proper procedures before leaving her former company, only to have her new employer rescind its offer just days before she was scheduled to start.
The writer, u/D3athStranding, said she is a 29-year-old woman living in Texas who had worked as a senior operations coordinator for three years. After receiving a job offer from another logistics firm with a 40% salary increase, she submitted her two-week resignation notice to her former employer.
She said everything was progressing smoothly as she transitioned into her new position. However, three days before she was scheduled to start, she received a call from the company informing her that it had decided to rescind the job offer.
After looking into what prompted the decision, she said she discovered that her former employer had sent the new company's legal team a formal cease-and-desist letter claiming she was bound by a two-year noncompete agreement under Texas law.
According to the Reddit user, the agreement would have prevented her from working for another company for two years. However, she said she had never signed such an agreement. She demanded a copy of the document from her former boss, who allegedly sent her a PDF containing an electronic signature that was supposedly signed three years earlier.
The writer said she obtained the PDF's metadata and discovered that the file had actually been created and signed four days before she found it. She said this raised concerns that the document had been created after she had already resigned and was being used to interfere with her new job.
She also claimed that her signature had been taken from old tax paperwork, which she believed only her former boss would have had access to.
Despite presenting what she said was evidence of the alleged forgery to her new employer, she claimed the company still refused to reinstate her offer because it wanted to avoid potential legal exposure.
Reddit Users Advise Her to Preserve Evidence and Contact an Attorney
The situation left the Reddit user questioning what legal action she could take against her former employer over what she described as a fraudulent contract and its alleged impact on her new job opportunity.
Several commenters encouraged her to speak with an employment attorney and preserve all documentation related to the dispute.
One commenter advised her to hire an attorney who handles litigation and preserve the digital evidence. “Get an employment attorney who handles litigation. Save every single email, the original PDF, and the extracted metadata file right now on a personal drive,” they wrote.
Another commenter suggested that she discuss sending a spoliation letter with her attorney. Such a letter can request that potentially relevant evidence be preserved when litigation is anticipated.
“When you get a lawyer, you may want to discuss with them about immediately sending a spoliation letter to the new employer advising them that they need to retain all the original documents submitted to them by the old employer due to pending litigation,” the commenter wrote.
The commenter also argued that the new employer could still become involved in any potential legal dispute despite attempting to avoid litigation by rescinding the job offer.
The Daily Dot was unable to independently verify the Reddit user's allegations, including whether her former employer forged her signature or submitted the disputed document to her prospective employer. The account is based solely on u/D3athStranding's description of the events.
