Employer trying to claw back 3k for "proprietary training" after I quit
I worked for this logistics firm as a junior analyst for about seven months. During my second week they had me sit through a three day Zoom seminar which they called a "High-Value Operations Bootcamp." It was mostly just the CEO rambling about synergy and some basic Excel shortcuts that anyone with a brain already knows. I signed a bunch of onboarding paperwork on my first day and one of the forms was a Training Repayment Agreement Provisions (TRAP) which stated that if I left within a year I would owe them the "fair market value" of the training.
I ended up getting a much better offer closer to home so I gave my two weeks notice last month. My manager seemed fine with it at the time but then I get an invoice in the mail yesterday for $3,000. They are claiming the Zoom seminar and the "internal handbook" constitute specialized professional development that they subsidized for me. The math makes no sense because the seminar was led by an internal HR person and there were twenty other people on the call.
I checked my final paycheck and they already withheld about $850 which was my entire last week of pay plus accrued PTO. The letter says I have thirty days to pay the remaining balance or they will send it to collections. I never received any certification or credit that I can actually use elsewhere so it feels like they are just charging me an exit fee for quitting.
Can they actually enforce a $3,000 bill for a couple of hours of internal meetings? It feels predatory as hell especially since the training had zero value outside of their specific internal software. I am in Ohio if that makes a difference regarding labor laws for these kinds of clawback clauses. I really do not want this hitting my credit score over some corporate nonsense.
LOCATION: Ohio