Private companies send intimidating letters to businesses claiming they're violating California labor law, then sell them $45 posters that are actually free from state websites. The scam works because government websites are confusing, so businesses pay rather than hunt for the free version.
If you've ever been to a company's office, you'll always notice on the wall that there is this poster, and this is a labor law poster. It's required by law that you have to post this. They update every year, so you have to get a new one every year. The bad news is you have to buy them, or do you? Here's the interesting thing about this business. There's a couple of companies that do this. They'll mail you a letter, and the letter looks a little bit scary. Hey, if you don't have this poster up, you are in violation of California labor laws, and you must have this up. It costs $45. And this is a private company that sends that letter? Correct. Now, the thing is, these labor law posters are actually free. You could just go to your state labor law website, you can get the labor law posters. But companies have realized that using this sort of like awareness tactic, making it easy, sort of scaring the hell out of you, is a way to make a couple million dollars a year on printing the same poster.
In all fairness, I'm on the government's website and figuring out how to order the poster for free is actually hard.
Of course, just like filing your taxes is a little bit confusing, and TurboTax and others, they turn the button into bright shiny green instead of small gray buttons that you don't know which one to
