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Ford reviews kiosks after workers claim payment glitches triggered wrongful terminations.
Fired employees say purchases processed incorrectly despite attempted card payments.
Some workers are reinstated already, some found new jobs, others are fighting for their old jobs.
Ford’s factory snack bars are supposed to make grabbing a quick treat easy. Instead, they’ve become the center of a bizarre controversy involving hungry workers who say faulty payment kiosks cost them their jobs. Ford and food-service provider Aramark are now reviewing the systems after multiple employees claimed they were wrongly accused of theft.
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The latest scrutiny follows reports that several employees were terminated after surveillance footage appeared to show purchases that weren’t properly completed. According to the Detroit Free Press, at least three workers at Michigan Assembly were eventually brought back after investigations cleared them.
One worker still fighting for reinstatement is Nick Nabozny, a Ford employee with nearly nine years at Michigan Assembly, where the automaker builds the Ranger truck and Bronco SUV. He says he scanned a bag of Doritos and Ritz Crackers, tapped his debit card, heard the familiar payment sound, and walked away believing everything had gone through normally. Later, he learned the transaction apparently never completed.
Nabozny told the Detroit Free Press that management never gave him the benefit of the doubt. “I asked, ‘What did I steal?’ ” Nabozny said. “He said, ‘They have you on camera in the marketplace stealing food.’ I said, ‘I never stole anything in my life. Why would I jeopardize my livelihood and my family’s livelihood to steal food when I’m making good money?'”
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The money he referenced wasn’t small. Nabozny’s hourly rate was around $40, and he took extra shifts whenever they came up. His 2025 total came to $89,000. This year, with overtime, he was headed for roughly $125,000.
“There was no talking to me, no review, no ‘You’re a great employee, been here for nine years … was it a mistake?’” he said. “No. Immediate termination.”
Fired Over A Not-Stolen Cookie
The situation echoes the case of Kentucky Truck Plant electrician Kurt Kromm, who we wrote about last month . Ford fired Kromm, who says he earned more than $200,000 last year, over a $1.95 chocolate chip cookie after kiosk records suggested the payment never went through. Kromm insists he immediately paid at another terminal and later produced bank records showing the charge was successfully processed. Ford eventually offered him his job back, but by then he’d already accepted a higher-paying position elsewhere.
Related: China’s Best-Seller Could Soon Be Built At A Ford Factory
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Workers claim kiosk problems aren’t exactly breaking news inside Ford production facilities. Michigan Assembly employee Brendan Fluker claimed employees have reported failed transactions, duplicate charges, frozen screens, and missing receipts for years. “People go in and scan an item, swipe their card and it beeps like the payment went through and then they see it didn’t go through,” he said.
Ford told the Detroit Free Press that it’s aware of concerns involving a limited number of cases and is reviewing them alongside Aramark. Meanwhile, some workers are understandably steering clear of the snack kiosks entirely.
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Ford, Frito-Lay
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