Company Took Money Out Of My Hourly Rate To Pay For Product That I Was Hired To Buy.

I work in promotional events for several different companies. One of the companies I work for recently took $16.99 out of my paycheck to reimburse themselves for a product I had originally bought with the company card. I was sampling out four kinds of wine from a brand. I was working at a large name liquor store that is known for being very knowledgeable. They offered to help me set up and brought me one of the kinds of wine that I was supposed to sample. Unbeknownst to me the varietal they brought me was incorrect. It was still a Chardonnay from the company I was promoting but it was a low alcohol, low sugar version and not the "regular" Chardonnay that I was supposed to open. I did not notice this until after I had opened the bottle and sampled to consumers. I still sold and promoted bottles of this Chardonnay throughout the entire event.

This has never happened before in my years of event experience- even if mistakes were made. I was not under the impression that this was possible unless the product purchased with company card was not at all related to the event taking place. In my mind both companies (the event company and the wine company) have both benefitted from my time and sales. I sold over 20 bottles within three hours. This constitutes a very successful event. Emails with the event company have been short and...unhelpful. I will obviously not work for this company again but I want my $16.99. Do I have a case? I will still be contacting different people within the agency and possibly the wine brand itself but if that leads nowhere I would want to do something more. I work part time and have a lot of free time so I'm willing to do what it takes.