Help, Advice Needed RE Overpayment

deviousdame

Hi Guys & Girls,

My Wife received this lovely letter from her previous recruitment agency today for when she was recently doing some temp work....

Dear Mrs ******

It has been brought to my attention that we have in error overpaid you for the period 3rd April 2006 to the 2nd June 2006.

The overpayment appears to have been made due to a computer error in our payroll system. An advance deduction (refund) shown on your payslips as (-) had been setup when a reversal of a previous payroll error an overpayment of a backdated rate increase. I have enclosed copies of the payslips concerned as you can see looking at the deductions column that £193.43 was refunded to you every week for 10 weeks, this amount should have only been refunded once.

The total amount of the overpayment is £1749.87. I would be grateful if you would check the information given above and to give me a ring if you disagree with this figure or would like clarification of what occured. Once you have agreed the total please let us have your cheque in repayment made payable to *****. As this sum is a substansial amount if you would like to ring me to arrange repayment over an agreed period.

Please accept my sincer apologies for the inconvenience this error may cause you.

Yours Sincerely

****

Assistant Payroll Manager


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

so we have been bck through her payslips and this error was definitely made, my wife tells me that she asked about this extra amount twice during the period it was being paid and asked them to check if this was a mistake. Apparently they said that there was no problem...

so what I'm asking for is some advice as to our rights, obviously they are prepared to accept this in instalments but how much should she offer to pay back per month? or maybe we can dispute this as their error and refuse to pay???

I'm really unsure what she should do..

Please Help

Damian

OberonSH

Has she got any proof that she asked and they said it was all fine?

keith_lard

Dont see why you have to pay back an error??

It aint a credit agreement!;)

K.:A :A

deviousdame

OberonSH wrote:

Has she got any proof that she asked and they said it was all fine?

I think it was just verbal over the phone, possibility of one email that shes trying to find..

Thanks

Iwantmorecash

she need to check the T&C of employment
if my employer overpay my they can just take it back ... its in my t&c

deviousdame

Iwantmorecash wrote:

she need to check the T&C of employment
if my employer overpay my they can just take it back ... its in my t&c

thanks, I'll have to see if she has a copy of her old contract

Cheers, DD

Bossyboots

A touch of reality - it was a mistake. People make mistakes. They have offered to let her pay back in instalments money she admits she shouldn't have been paid. It is no doubt a nuisance but she will have to pay it back. You can be sure they will issue court proceedings if she doesn't and I would expect them to easily obtain judgement as she has no defence and they are being reasonable about it.

I would have thought it would have been better to come to arrangement with them before they decide to take it further. She must check though that she hasn't paid tax and NI on this amount. I don't think it is reasonable to expect her to reclaim the tax or pay back the NI contributions to the agency so check those figures carefully.

madduck

my advice would probably be to play hardball with the agency on this one - though expect them to try to do the same. I'm normally on the other side of the fence from your wife.

The key point that she has to stress is that she questioned the payment (on more than one occasion) and as a result of being reassurred that the payment was correct, spent the money in good faith.

deviousdame

Bossyboots wrote:

A touch of reality - it was a mistake. People make mistakes. They have offered to let her pay back in instalments money she admits she shouldn't have been paid. It is no doubt a nuisance but she will have to pay it back. You can be sure they will issue court proceedings if she doesn't and I would expect them to easily obtain judgement as she has no defence and they are being reasonable about it.

I would have thought it would have been better to come to arrangement with them before they decide to take it further. She must check though that she hasn't paid tax and NI on this amount. I don't think it is reasonable to expect her to reclaim the tax or pay back the NI contributions to the agency so check those figures carefully.

thanks for this boosyboots, we had not even thought about the Tax and NI issues.. the plot thikens for sure :eek:

deviousdame

madduck wrote:

my advice would probably be to play hardball with the agency on this one - though expect them to try to do the same. I'm normally on the other side of the fence from your wife.

The key point that she has to stress is that she questioned the payment (on more than one occasion) and as a result of being reassurred that the payment was correct, spent the money in good faith.

This was my way of thinking entirely, although as boosyboots points out, they may well take us to court and win so we need to be sure on all the points..

Thanks again everyone for your help so far...

any other oppinions appreciated :cool:

spud30

deviousdame wrote:

This was my way of thinking entirely, although as boosyboots points out, they may well take us to court and win so we need to be sure on all the points..

Thanks again everyone for your help so far...

any other oppinions appreciated :cool:

I'm not sure they would be able to take you to court, as they have no signed credit agreement/loan agreement to produce to prove the debt.

In another life, I used to take people to court, and I had to provide the relevant documents to the court for each person.

I could , of course, be very wrong