I recently quit a job at an english teaching company in Madrid.

They had paid me for training, and I quit after the first week because the company was impossible to work with.

No labor contract existed between me and the english school, it was all autonomo work. I taught on their behalf, basically I was employed by them but autonomo status allows them to avoid paying my social security (I understand this is normal for ESL companies here). In reality I am not registered as autonomo, and I do not know how this affects matters.

The thing is they owe me for the week I worked, however when I got in touch with the company the boss had a fit and told me that I “owe them the money that they paid me for training” (which is more than I made working in the first week).

This is not a fly-by-night company either, it’s one of the big players, so I’m amazed at this whole situation.

I can’t imagine that this is legal.

My spanish is bad and I am having a hard time finding what my rights are in Spain as far as trying to collect this money.

I am not in any legal limbo either: EU citizen with a Social Security and NIE number.

Hmm I guess there’s both a legal question here and a moral one. Your boss has a point. It sucks that his company was so difficult to work for though.

Not sure about the legal ramifications, but without contracts or anything in writing it could be tough. You might want to register as autonomo though.

Thanks for the reply.

Re autonomo: I was never autonomo, and since I work under a contract now I don’t intend to be. The company that defrauded me advised not to register as autonomo until a few months into the job (when we would have a steady cash flow). The companies had contracts with the english school and the school then sent out freelance teachers. There’s records of everything. However, I guess I was in legal limbo since I had not registered as autonomo.

No contracts were ever signed. But there was an e-mail acceptance of terms.

The sum of money that is outstanding is a bit more than 250 euros, with the cost of lawyers I am wondering how worthwhile this is going to be. Also, if I get the money back, will the government want me to pay it as social security contributions?

Finally, even if it turns out to be impossible for me to collect this money it must be absolutely impossible for the company that I worked for to legally claim the money that they paid me for training. I can’t imagine their claims hold any legal ground.