HELP!! - costly error at work :(

Fill_7

hi ppl...

i work in a village post office, and have done for 17 years.

in march 2009 we had a customer from a local business bring a tax payment in for approx £1k which they paid by cheque. at the end of day when i was preparing reports i could not find the cheque they paid with. without going into detail, im 99.9% sure i somehow gave them their cheque back at time of payment, creating a discrepancy of £1k to my office.
i rang our processing centre and told them about this to which they basically said dont worry, we have ways and means of getting the money from them, we just have to wait 6 months to see if the chq turns up elsewhere. phew (or so i thought....)
a few weeks later, the processing centre rings me back saying we may have to stand the loss if the chq doesnt turn up! but to give it a while longer yet b4 we panic.
didnt hear anything else till yesterday. a demand for nearly £1k to be paid within 7 days from our bosses or it will be deducted from our salary!!!

so, im in the process of writing the local business a letter asking them to provide a copy of the statement which has the said cheque payment on it. as i previously said, im 99.9% sure this wont exist.

so what i would like to know from you helpful souls who have the potential to stop me going under! is...

will it cost the business to get copies of their bank statements?
is there anything i can do to investigate whether or not this payment has left their account?
any other advice on how i can go about reclaiming this loss from them would be VERY much appreciated.

Yours hopefully...
Fill

paulwf

Fill_7 wrote: »

hi ppl...

will it cost the business to get copies of their bank statements?

It depends...if you don't mind them just printing off a copy from online banking then this won't cost them. This could in theory be altered so you could ask for a photocopy of their bank statements...all businesses should keep their paperwork. If you require new copies of their bank statements then they will probably get charged a few pounds for this by their bank.

Has anyone actually spoken to the business?

Fill_7

hi paul,

thanks for your response and helpful info re copies of bank statements.

the customer brought this payment in on a friday. i realised the chq was missing fri night. i rang them sat morn and asked if id given them a chq back, they said no. the same lady who brought the chq in on fri came back in on the mon morn and told me i must of sent it off because it had gone out of their account that morning. and that is when i knew she was lying! on a friday, the PO doesnt send any chqs received that day to our processing centre till the sat morn.this wont be received at the proc centre till sometime on monday, then the chq clearing process will begin. so for her to come in at 9.30am on the mon telling me her chq has gone out the account is a totall bluff. esp as i didnt have the chq to send to the processing centre in the first place!!

im wondering what i should do next to retrieve the outstanding payment...

thanks again.

Ivrytwr3

Get your office to re-send them the bill for 1k.

If they state they have paid the bill, then they will need to provide proof. If they refuse to produce proof/refuse to pay, start proceedings against them.

I don't understand what the issue is. As a cheque was used as payment, there will be a trail if it was ever cashed.

Just because a cheque has been lost/stolen/returned etc, will not stop them having to pay their tax bill!

Chinkle

This situation puzzles me too after all you are just a middle man - so to speak.

1) The customer says the money has left their account, if it didn't reach the correct destination eg the tax office - surely they would be complaining as they'd have the tax office on their back.

2) If you think you handed the cheque back, maybe they didn't notice (or even if it got lost somewhere) and hasn't reached the tax office the customer should just cancel it and send another one.

3)If the cheque has been stolen in the process and cashed by someone else then the bank should investigate, if the payment was made out to HM Revenue I think it would have been quite difficult for someone else to cash it.

Even if it's scenario 3 it would be hard to prove you had any hand in it, unless of course the money turned up in your own bank account.

Don't see how or why your bosses are trying to make you repay the money.

Fill_7

the bill they paid at the PO was an Inland Revenue demand.
i sent the IR payment slip away to relevant place. IR happy that local business has paid.
the chq they paid with is nowhere to be found. PO issue me with a demand for outstanding amount.

i cant simply issue the local business with a bill for £1k can i? as far as they're concerned their account with IR is settled, and i have a suspicion the local business is trying to avoid havin to reissue payment.
im in the process or writing them a letter asking for a copy of a statement showing payment, but if they fail to produce this how do i legally go about reclaiming the £1k from local business?

excuse my ignorance, this kind of thing is fairly new to me.

cheers.

MYLITTLESISTERLOLA

A copy of the cheque would be more helpful it will have information as to where the cheque was processed and into which account, as you don't know if someone changed the payee and then cashed/banked the cheque. A copy of a cheque normally costs £10 which I'm sure the PO could sort out under the circumstances. I would advise getting advise from a legal representitive and perhaps a solicitors letter to said business ( with the PO's authority of course ) The IR would have this bill as settled as the PO's processing office obviously put something against it to balance it at the time leaving the discrepency in a sundries account, which they are now pursuing you for. I would also have a good look around your office for the cheque in case it has got caught up with other paper work, or fallen down behind something, it would be out of date but it would be evidence that the cheque was not processed. I would have imagined your processing office should have advised you to remove the IR payment slip until you could sort the matter out on Monday morning that way you could have approached the business saying the bill had not been paid as the cheque could not be located then they would have been much more keen to help, but too late for that now. I'm not sure of the payments recall timescales but I would imagine a year is too long to recall such a payment.

Hope you get matters sorted

MLSL

chloe99_2

I cant be much help, but I would have though the po staff (ie you!!!) would be certain how to deal with this - so when you communicate with the business make sure you sound like you know what youre doing and make them know that the law is on your side. What I mean to say is, if you make out like you know what you're doing, they may cave quicker!!!

Not sure about the cheques think as I have a feeling they may clear them straight away, would be worth checking this in case they could have an arguement that it cleared on the Monday.

Anyway, her claim that it cleared on the monday will help you as she has no excuse for not knowing which bank stement it was on!!

*Louise*

Some people are just total chancers!! Imagine thinking they can get away with just not paying.

I think you should persevere, you may have made a mistake, no one is infallible, but they shoudl still have to pay their bill, not you. Businesses have to keep archives of their accounts for a number of years, so they should have proof that they cheque was cashed (since they say it was)

I'm just wondering WHY it has taken this long to get things sorted? Surely if it started in March 09 this should have been getting sorted out last Sept? You really should have contacted the business as soon as you couldn't find the cheque, asked them to cancel it and issue a new one. Still, we all live and learn

Hope you can get this sorted soon

Ivrytwr3

Fill_7 wrote: »

the bill they paid at the PO was an Inland Revenue demand.
i sent the IR payment slip away to relevant place. IR happy that local business has paid.
the chq they paid with is nowhere to be found. PO issue me with a demand for outstanding amount.

i cant simply issue the local business with a bill for £1k can i?

Ah, ok, it's a bit clearer now!

OK, you have took payment and sent off a slip confirming payment. What would happen if the cheque bounced, the post office and cheque was burned to the ground etc? There must be something in place for this kind of problem surely?

Why can you not just contact the IR and inform them that the Post Office has not received the funds and therefore the IR slip sent to them is now void?

The IR will then re-send the people a new bill and IF they have paid it, will have to provide proof.

Fill_7

now at the time this error occured, i made numerous calls to our 'accounting team', liaising with one particular woman on how to resolve my problem of this missing chq. she basically told me not to worry as we have procedures in place for this kind of thing.
after i received yesterday the demand to make good the discrepancy, i rang the 'accounting team' again. they've just told me the chq was never flagged as a missing chq, the woman who i dealt with no longer works there and its too late to now flag the chq as missing so they cant help me in the recovery of the payment. basically, ive gotta find £1k and pay the debt to my employers!!!
so i said to her, i'll write to the local business askin them to provide proof of payment then shall i? to which she replied, 'theres not much point cause u wont get any confirmation of events off us'!!

so where do i stand legally if i try pursuing the local business for the outstanding payment and they refuse to provide any proof?

many anticipated thanks....
Fill