My lesson here was: Never take a relocation package that has the company sorting your housing and travel, just ask for a large signing bonus instead.
My lesson here was: Never take a relocation package that has the company sorting your housing and travel, just ask for a large signing bonus instead.
Nobody should sign a contract where they can fire you and charge you relocation costs; that is not employment but a scam to prop up relocation companies!
If you quit, then it's 50/50 in my mind. My take is that I don't want to be liable anything for quitting; the signing bonus is literally a bonus for signing the contract, not an obligation to do a certain amount of work. Salary covers the work. But I'd probably take a signing bonus that requires some tenure to not have to pay it back. Spend the money after that period. (Relocation is different to me because the disruption in your life is what they're paying for. If you don't like the job, your life was still disrupted. You're not asking for them to unrelocate you.)
The relocation management company racked up a bill I would have never incurred if I allocated the money myself.