You guys want to hear a brutal story? Let me tell you what my former employer just did to his existing staff.

Background: The guy owns a chain of restaurants. Always tells his staff "I've never taken a paycheck from the company"
Doesn't make sense, but it did grow quickly, so who knows, right?

But once I took over, I wasn't allowed to see ANY company financials. Theye initially didn't even want me counting inventory.

A chef. Not counting inventory. Now that's questionable.

Myself and the general manager, who also isn't allowed to see company financials(!) start doing some math, because the owner is telling us the company is running out of money.

There is nothing to suggest we should be running out, based on the info we could cobble together.
Anyways, we leave it alone for a bit, eventually I get a great job offer elsewhere, and I leave.
Now however...

Everyone has been laid off, and either checks have bounced, or they have been told theyre not getting paid. The owner is real sorry he says, but is not going to pay up.

Thing is: He would have known weeks ago he was not going to pay them, and he still made sure they worked a bit for free for his benefit.

One staff member's dad went out to the owners house irate, threatened him, owner gave a big sob story about how he couldn't afford it.
Dude drives a BMW, owns 5 business locations, a house and property, but can't pay his staff what he owes.

That house and property? Inherited.

One manager got mad about being told he wasn't getting paid, walked out. The owner said, to other staff, that he was going to "fuck everything up for him"
He marked that manager as "quit" so he "couldn't get on EI when we close"

Now these staff are fucked over, and they're all sweet people who will likely just take this on the chin, and not absolutely blast the guy's business. The guy will re-open another business eventually, and do this all again.

After the fourth former staff reached out to me to say they hadn't been paid, I got mad. I left the company months ago amicably but I told him back then I knew he was shady. I also sent the owner this today, to let him know I know.