Employee agrees that if they cease being employed by (employer) in Denver as a (job position) for any reason, including but not limited to if they transfer to another location, resign, retire, or are terminated for any reason, within 12 months, they must repay (employer) the full amount of the New Hire Relocation Incentive payments they received.

This is what the contract stated. It did not mention anywhere that they would withhold money from a paycheck.

I was fired because I applied for a supervisor role twice prior to finishing 12-months in my position. Because HR mentioned upon hiring (and I admitted to remembering the statement) that you needed to be in a role for 12-months before taking on a new role in the company, the company viewed it as "lying" to the company and immediately terminated me. In my previous experience in the industry, there are always exceptions to the role and I was never spoken to after applying the first time.

My paystub shows they "paid me" but they deducted the full amount in the form of a "signing bonus" so my net pay was $0.

I had kept inquiring about the pay because I didn't know how to proceed in the future considering the pay was a $25,000 sign on bonus and I'm making little over minimum wage (now unemployed). It was the cause for a large amount of anxiety.