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Vadim (name changed) left Belarus with his family in 2022. “Even back in 2020, after the elections and mass protests, it became clear that I was not ready to continue living under Lukashenko. But at that time, I decided to stay and see how the situation would develop. After the start of the full-scale war of Russia against Ukraine, I could no longer remain on the sidelines and watch the chaos unfold. I support Ukraine and did not want to continue living in a country whose authorities support Russian aggression. That’s why in 2022 we left, just like many Belarusians did in those years,” he recalls.
According to him, after moving, he primarily focused on legalizing his status, establishing work, and settling into life. In November 2025, his family paid for his studies to become a test automation engineer. Since then, he has had a set schedule: studying in the morning, working as a courier in the evening.
He combined his courier work with two partners. The first is an agency that officially registers couriers for Pyszne.pl: a clear contract, transparent hourly rate, all contributions are paid as they should be. «I have no complaints about this part; I specifically keep it in my history as an example of how everything should look,» he emphasizes.
Drugi partner — firma Eternis — jest zorganizowana inaczej. Nie jest małym pośrednikiem: według danych firmy, przez nią rozlicza się ponad 18 000 kurierów i kierowców w całej Polsce. Współpracuje z Uberem, Uber Eats, Boltem, Glovo, Pysznym i Woltem, a jej siedziba znajduje się w Warszawie, z oddziałami w kilku miastach w kraju. “Okazuje się, że wszystko było tu zorganizowane inaczej. I to nie jest moja wina, nie część jakiegoś szarego schematu, w którym uczestniczyłem, to zostało mi zrobione bez mojej wiedzy,” mówi Wadim.
How he realized that something was wrong
It all started with another application for «800+» — a child benefit that many families in Poland receive, including foreigners, if they are officially employed. He was denied: the contributions that Eternis paid for him to ZUS (the Polish equivalent of social insurance) turned out to be too small, even though in reality he worked almost every weekday, on average from 6:00 PM to 10:00–11:00 PM, sometimes even on weekends.
“I started to investigate and saw things I hadn’t noticed before,” he says. In the payslip for one month, only about 200 zlotys of the amount paid to him was classified as “salary under the contract,” meaning the portion from which contributions are paid. The rest, which is more than 14 times that amount (a copy of the breakdown from Eternis for March is in the editor’s possession), was classified as “reimbursement for car usage.”
“I work using my own car, but according to the terms of the Eternis contract, I am not entitled to any compensation for fuel or wear and tear on the vehicle; I bear all these costs myself, from my own salary. So there are no actual expenses that the company would be obligated to reimburse me for in the contract; there is simply nothing to compare the ‘expense reimbursement’ to. It’s just another name for the same salary, so that the state receives contributions from pennies, not from actual earnings,” explains Vadim. He also provided a copy of the contract to the editorial office.
According to him, if it weren’t for the denial of the benefit, he would never have known that Eternis had not been paying his contributions as required since the beginning of the contract, from the summer of 2025. «I had to start from scratch to understand what the ZUS personal account is, where to check the paid contributions, how to read the payslip from Eternis, and what the law actually says. I had no knowledge of this before and paid the price for that ignorance,» he says.
“Of course, one can say: it's my own fault, I should have read carefully what I was signing. But when I, while signing the contract, asked the company representative whether the formal entry ‘9 hours a month’ would be a problem, I was told: don’t worry, that’s how it is, you will be considered as if you worked a full month, if you want to work, sign it,” recalls Vadim.
According to him, the trust was also reinforced by the scale of the company: “What was I, a foreigner, supposed to think? This is one of the largest operators in this field in Poland, thousands of people work with them, it seemed obvious that if such a large company does it this way, then it must be the right way. I must admit, I had a naive thought: ‘It’s Europe, they don’t deceive here,’ but it turned out to be just like everywhere else.”
“It still doesn’t make sense how such a scheme could go unnoticed for so long,” he says. He suspects that it would be difficult to avoid attention for so long without some connections or, as they say, a “roof,” but, he emphasizes, this is his personal assumption that he cannot confirm in any way.
What he did
Vadim nie tylko załamał ręce. Najpierw skontaktował się bezpośrednio z Eternis, prosząc ich o poprawienie raportów. Firma wielokrotnie odmówiła. Następnie napisał oficjalny list, powołując się na artykuł 742 Kodeksu cywilnego, który stwierdza, że "zwrot kosztów" może obejmować jedynie rzeczywiście poniesione wydatki i nie może być używany jako sposób na obniżenie wynagrodzenia podlegającego składkom, i zażądał, aby deklaracje ZUS zostały poprawione w ciągu tygodnia. W przeciwnym razie zagroził, że skontaktuje się z inspekcją pracy i ZUS za pośrednictwem prawnika. Kopię korespondencji przekazał redakcji. Po tym liście Eternis przestał odpowiadać.
Then he filed a complaint with the Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy, directing it to the Gdańsk branch, but it was redirected to Warsaw. He also provided a copy of the complaint to the editorial office. At the same time, he submitted an odwołanie to ZUS, where he described the scheme in detail, attached documents, and requested not to rely solely on the data provided by the company, but to conduct an independent investigation. “By law, ZUS has the right to do so,” he notes. A copy of the odwołanie is also available at the editorial office.
What is wrong with the refusal itself
Odpowiedź przyszła po pewnym czasie, i to nie od firmy, lecz od ZUS. Odmowa została podtrzymana. “Ale nie tylko podtrzymana, wydaje się, że decyzja została poskładana w pośpiechu, ‘na kolanie,’” mówi Wadim. “Ani jego dowody, ani wniosek o przeprowadzenie inspekcji, ani fakt, że jednocześnie złożył skargę do inspektoratu pracy, nic z tego nie zostało wspomniane w treści decyzji, jakby ta część odwołania w ogóle nie została otwarta.”
The negligence in preparing the decision is also indicated by obvious typos: somewhere in the text, it addresses "Pani," although it should be "Pan," and the start date of cooperation with Eternis is stated as 2026, while in fact, the contract was signed a year earlier, in 2025
Not the only refusal
While he was dealing with ZUS, he was also working on another matter: an application for the Karta Polaka (a document confirming Polish roots). He received rejections in both cases. «Whether it’s a coincidence or not, I can’t say for sure. But after these two rejections, I have a strong feeling: wherever you go, it’s currently not easy for a foreigner in Poland to receive any support from the government,» he says.
What’s next
According to ZUS, Vadim is determined to go all the way: he intends to file a complaint with the administrative court. The company, according to him, continues to operate as it did before.
For him, what matters more is not the amount itself, but understanding why the contributions during his time at Eternis were calculated in that way and why, after his inquiries, the situation did not receive a thorough investigation
“It may seem like this is a story about money, but it’s about a small amount. For me, first and foremost, this is a story about what happens when you honestly point out a violation of the law to the government, and instead of investigating, it simply closes the case without even reviewing your evidence. I don’t expect any politician to suddenly take my case under their wing, although anything can happen. I just want one simple thing for myself: that those who honestly point out violations to the government are treated as seriously as the government demands to be treated,” he says.
Vadim nie czeka tak bardzo na konkretny wynik dotyczący swojej sprawy po opublikowaniu swojej historii, ale raczej ma nadzieję, że może to być przydatne dla kogoś. "Może prawnicy, którzy rozumieją takie sprawy, odpowiedzą, może ludzie, którzy doświadczyli czegoś podobnego, ale milczeli. Albo może ktoś po prostu zasugeruje, co robić dalej," ma nadzieję.
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