Nobody is being defrauded. It is at-will employment. If the employer is still willing to employ the dev working this much, everything is well above board.
At-will cuts a lot harder both ways when it's remote work ;)
When payment is made for services not rendered, it's Fraud.
If the employer has expectations that the employee 'does nothing' then it's fine, but that's almost assuredly not the case.
This posture is not only toxic, but it's also unjust will spread into much greater malaise as others take up the mantle of 'doing nothing'.
Literally a colleague I had over for dinner last night left his job, and the primary reason was 'many of my higher paid colleagues are not doing anything'.
I'm not sure if he was more frustrated or jealous, and there were other issues, but he left just the same.
Nothing in any of my FTE contracts has anything beyond "at-will." No explicit "money for such and such services rendered."
There's literally no fraud here for a typical American FTE at-will employment arrangement. The worst-case scenario is getting fired from the job with no additional repercussions.
"Literally a colleague I had over for dinner last night left his job, and the primary reason was 'many of my higher paid colleagues are not doing anything'"
Surely if this was actual Fraud he should be filling a police report or lawsuit?
Surely the all-knowing free market should punish companies that pay people to do nothing with its3 all powerfull invisible hand?
At-will cuts a lot harder both ways when it's remote work ;)