Cite as: Real Problem AI problem “What do I do if my employer is not depositing my 401(k) contributions?”. Opportunity score 8.0 out of 10 (severity 8, AI feasibility 9, market signal 7, competition gap 8). Category FinTech. Trend Agents. Source signal: r/personalfinance post "Just found out my employer has not posted 5 months worth of paycheck contributions to my 401(k) balance", 16 October 2026, 197 comments.. Canonical URL: https://www.realproblem.ai/idea/what-do-i-do-if-my-employer-is-not-depositing-my-401k-contributions.
What do I do if my employer is not depositing my 401(k) contributions?
Employees find out months later that money taken from every paycheck never reached their 401(k), and do not know what they are owed, who to ask, or whether reporting it will backfire.
Who has it: Employees at small and mid sized companies, especially early career workers who do not check their retirement account often.
- Severity8/10
- Feasible today9/10
- Market signal7/10
- Competition gap8/10
Heard in public
“$3382.58 total deducted from my paychecks since 6/1/2026 with $0 of it posted to my balance.”
Quoted word for word from the public post linked below. Nobody submitted it to Real Problem AI.
r/personalfinance post "Just found out my employer has not posted 5 months worth of paycheck contributions to my 401(k) balance", 16 October 2026, 197 comments.What nothing does yet
A paycheck to 401(k) match checker: read pay stubs and the plan account, flag any contribution that has not landed within the legal window, estimate lost earnings, and walk the employee through a polite internal request and then the EBSA complaint if needed.
Tools that solve this
3 named so far, and where each one stops.
- Department of Labor EBSA complaints
The official route, slow, and most workers do not know it exists.
- 401(k) provider dashboards
Show deposits, but nothing compares them to your pay stubs.
- Payroll and plan auditors
Work for the employer, not the employee.
How you might build it
- 01Pay stub OCR
- 02Retirement account aggregation (Plaid, Pinwheel)
- 03Deposit timing rules
- 04Lost earnings calculator
- 05Guided complaint letters
#NOV13 · Canonical URL: https://www.realproblem.ai/idea/what-do-i-do-if-my-employer-is-not-depositing-my-401k-contributions