Money Moral Dilemma: Should I return the overpayment?

pixwix

ssimon wrote: »

But if he got underpaid £65, and the employee noticed a week later would the employee have phoned him to offer him the £65 he had underpaid him? Probably not so I know what i'd have done!

Sorry to sound mean, but I'm with you, mate. You're right - it wouldn't have happened - the customer would be none the wiser - and I know that for a fact.

I HAVE been overcharged at Tesco's - seriously overcharged. And I didn't get to know about it until I saw my credit card statement. It took some serious argument to get that money back.

Recently, I've found the same with faulty goods - a situation becoming rather too common at my local branch. Tesco used to be one of the best stores around when it came to refund/ replacement - in and out in 10 minutes with a refund or new item, no problem. I used to recommend them on that basis alone. Lately they've changed, and it took heated arguments to establish my basic consumer rights over the last two items I had to return.

So - purely on the basis of what's sauce for the goose etc - if I got something for nothing from Tescos they wouldn't get a penny back unless the law required it.

As for being phoned at home by the assistant??? That alone would raise alarm bells with me.

bobvfr

Yes - no question.

nellykim

So...... what did you do then , in the end... ?

let us know, please, will you..

bogwart

Pay it back. It's not your money and I'm sure if it was the other way round you'd be jumping up and down.

HeadAboveWater

hard to say what the 'right' option is. their error so their problem. BUT if they had underpaid you £65 you'd have been straight back to get your money back.

terlan

This is tescos not some little company we're talking about.
I'm pretty sure that the £65 cant come out of his personal pockets a result of an error in judgement. It would be the same as charging the staff for the weeks breakages, it doesnt happen and theres unions to prevent this sort of thing.

The worst that could happen is a reprimand or a warning. If the memeber of staff has consistantly made similar mistakes, it could lead to a dismissal on grounds of incompetance and justly so.

The fact that he is contacting you outside the normal channels is most likely a breach of several data protection laws and his own companies policies and I would be complaining to tescos wit this regard and the misuse of your personal information

As to the £65 the mistake was theirs and I have no doubt that if tesco finds its tills over on a night it does not go through its club card records to discover which customer has been over charged and refund them accordingly. So I'd be inclined to keep it.

I think I'd be inclined to

toadhall

sounds like a scam to me, don't pay anymore attention to it

lindaindigo

if you checked you really had been overpaid.. then you should be big hearted and honest enough to pay it back.. imagine if you were in the clerks position..the store would be down on him... you would feel better from being honest...

jgriggle

A similar thing happened to a friend of mine a few years ago. He worked for a Hi-Fi store and a customer bought a piece of kit for about £350. The credit card machine had broken down so he had to do a manual swipe of the card on to carbon paper.

Once the card machine was up and running the staff were typing the details from the card imprints into the machine and it turned out that the manual reader had missed off the last digit of the card. They had the customer's address but it turned out that he was ex-directory so they couldn't phone him. They wrote to him but he ignored the letters.

The card company refused to help even though the missing digit would only have been one of 10!

So my poor friend ended up having the £350 deducted from his wages. It was his mistake, but as he was only taking home just under £1000 a month at the time it crippled him and his young family financially for a while.

JagsMan

Firstly, can someone remind me of how much profit Tesco make every year, I believe its around £2BILLION?
Secondly, the employee should not be able to contact you directly, it should be the boss or a letter should be sent to you as oppossed to seeking sympathy.
Thirdly, if the employee has made a genuine mistake, they will get a bit of a beating from the boss but its hardly the end of the world for the Blue Devils, £65 isnt going to bring the administrators in is it!!!!!:)