We hear it again and again, especially in the comments of reports regarding Bay Area tech workers: just because you're working for a local tech company doesn't mean you're making Zuck money. But Fremont company EFI took that sentiment to the next level, paying staffers on their IT team as little as $1.21 an hour as they worked as much as 122 hours per week.

According to Susana Blanco, district director of the U.S. Labor Department's wage and hour division in San Francisco, the Department got an anonymous tip that Electronics for Imaging had brought eight employees to Fremont from Bangalore, India to set up the company's computer network and systems from September 8, 2013 through December 21, 2013, as part of the company's move from Foster City to Fremont.

Though the workers were working in the US, they were paid roughly $1.21 per hour, in rupees, for 122 hour work weeks, without any regard for California minimum wage or overtime laws.

EFI, which, according to the Associated Press, "earned $109 million last year and awarded CEO Guy Gecht with a pay package valued at nearly $6 million, including more than $1.2 million in salary and bonuses," claimed ignorance of federal laws requiring those working on US soil to be paid following US regulations.

According to Beverly Rubin, EFI's VP of HR, during the move "we unintentionally overlooked laws that require even foreign employees to be paid based on local US standards," the Merc reports.

"This was discovered through an anonymous tip, and we need that kind of information to discover these sorts of illegal situations," Blanco said. According to Michael Eastwood, a Department of Labor assistant district director, EFI's violations were "worse than anything that I ever saw in any of those Los Angeles sweatshops," he told the AP.

Following the Department's investigation, EFI was ordered to pay the eight workers more than $40,000 in back wages, as well as a fine of $3,520.

According to Rubin, EFI will work to make sure that this type of "administrative error" won't happen again. For her part, Blanco isn't quite buying the "it was a mistake!" rap, telling the Merc Wednesday that "it is appalling that foreign labor is being brought in under these circumstances."