The attorney general’s office began their investigation after they received a complaint from an employee at a Herb Chambers Porsche dealership in Boston, alleging the company had taken $5 a week from his paycheck to “launder his uniform,” according to a statement from Attorney General Maura Healey.

Herb Chambers Companies, a New England-based auto dealer with dozens of dealerships in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, will pay $116,758 in restitution to current and former employees after allegedly taking “improper deductions from employees’ paychecks” from 2014 to 2017, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office announced Friday.

Over the course of their investigation, the attorney general’s office found that the auto dealer had given new employees a “Uniform Deduction Authorization” that “failed to indicate the deductions for laundry services were voluntary.”


Herb Chambers will pay restitution to 358 current and former employees of the company and has “implemented new authorizations that include language indicating the deductions for laundry services are voluntary.”

“Herb Chambers has agreed to change its practices and will pay back its employees,” Healey said in the statement. “We are pleased with this resolution.”

A spokesman for Herb Chambers Companies said, “We are also pleased this matter was resolved quickly and fairly.”

Felicia Gans can be reached at felicia.gans@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @FeliciaGans.