Money Moral Dilemma: Should I return the overpayment?

tallgirld

How on earth did they manage to get in contact with you? Sounds a bit dodgy to me. I reckon you should keep it. I bet if they gave you too little you couldn't contact them. They would say "Sorry you should have noticed before you left the building" Well so should they. EVERY LITTLE HELPS :-)

tryfive

kathy_virginvie wrote: »

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.

What's your point here?

Those who said they wouldn't give Tescos any money are simply acting in their own interests.

If you had been underpaid by 65 quid and went back to complain, you'd have been doing the same thing.

Not much of a difference here...

Pellyman

This is a MORAL dilemma board - so why are you asking?

If you are satisfied you were overpaid then quite obviously you should pay it back. The fact that it is Tesco is totally irrelevant. Are you honest or aren't you? If you pay it back you are honest, if you don't you are dishonest - no argument.

YOU decide - you shouldn't even be asking us.

pineapple

This couldn't be some sort of a scam could it, with the employee pocketing the returned cash?
I wouldn't expect Tescos as an organisation to take this sort of action, so if not a scam, it's probably a lone employee trying to cover his back and rectify a mistake without involving the management.
In which case I would return it. None of us is perfect, we all stuff up occasionally. One day we might want similar help. What goes around, comes around.

joanne28

I work for a large travel company and this happened to me only last week. A client bought back two lot's of currencies back to change back to sterling. As soon as she had walked out the door I realised I had put the incorrect rate on the system and had therefore given her approx £65 too much. ( and I wondered why she had a look of surprise on her face when I told her how much she would get back).

I was horrified at making such a mistake and losing the company money and so I called the clients mobile number immediately (its company policy for us to take contact details). She didn't answer so I left a message explaining that I had made an error and and that I was really sorry but I would be really grateful if she could pop back to the shop to sort it out, I was almost in tears making the call - guess what, she didn't even bother to return my call.

mr-tom_2

Difficult purely on the information currently available to you.

Naturally, if you aren't due the money then honesty would suggest you should return it, that's what I would do. But only if you were shown evidence of the mistaken transaction.

I'm probably reading too much between the lines, but much like many other posters, I really do think that something sounds fishy here. As other users have pointed out, there are the questions of the time delay, the deviation from what appears to be usual practice and how the "till jockey" got your personal details. One other point is that you're unclear as to how much was on the card. To me, if they had told you this during the transaction, there would not now be any doubt. The omission of that critical bit of information gives you nothing to go on.

50/50 as to whether it is a scam or not. Unless they can demonstrate that it is an honest mistake, don't be persuaded to hand over what may well be your money.

Might be worth going and speaking with the manager to find out the truth. As others say, daily reports mean that they will already know if it isn't a scam.

MallyMon

is it? It doesn't matter how much profit Tesco makes, the money isn't yours. It's not a large amount but it's still not yours and the employee will either have to make it up or be demoted or fired. And I can't believe the customer Joanne dealt with at the travel agency! No good will come of theft like this. You know it's not yours and you should therefore return it, tout suite.

Equity

Yes, you should. Society works best for us all when people can trust each other to do 'the right thing'. That means we shouldn't leave it to others to have a moral way of life while we simply cream off the benefits.

happyinflorida

This really does not sound right to me - I don't believe Tesco would allow an employee to contact you in this manner. So possibly the employee has worked out he's made a mistake and is trying to cover it up, by contacting you himself. This is not right, Tesco should be made aware of what he's doing.
I would ask for proof - were you given a receipt at the time? You should have been. If you've lost it or not got it now, ask for a copy to be sent to you first and check the date and time on it, to make sure it is the same one you were given, if there's none on there, contact the manager or head office to ask what's going on as it could be an assistant at Tesco is doing this fraudulently to try and get some extra money - he may be contacting several people in the hope of making a small fortune for some reason?! Stranger things have happened.
It certainly doesn't sound right to me though. I would not expect an employee to be ringing. Tesco's are a billion pound profit making company, so would they really sanction something like this? I don't think so.

Toola-Roola

jackbarclay wrote: »

Hello, new poster, sorry.

I worked 9 months in a Tesco Travel Money bureaux.

Firstly whatever you think about Tescos, this is not Tescos, forex is outsourced to Travelex and the stores are operated on a very solitary basis so with a 3 percent profit margin 65 pounds is alot of money (the store would have to turn over almost £2200 to make it back).

Secondly this will be legit, the Cash Passports are loaded onto a separate system to the normal retail trading system and, yes, as such as only checked weekly by the team leader.

On the other hand, during my time I was unfortunate enough to have lost almost £100 though a careless error (pressing euro on the system rather than dollar ) and whilst my boss was VERY angry at me, I wasn't fired, I think I was given an official warning or something. Obviously the right thing to do is give the money back. But I personally wouldn't expect a customer to do so. As a cashier I accepted that my mistake was my own. The only difference is that they have all your details.

Obviously an inconclusive answer but I hope the extra information will help you to make your mind up.


Jack.

I have registered under a different user name as I too work for the same company as Jack (did) and I know my employers look at this site so do not want them to see any of my previous posts.

As Jack mentioned, a cashier in a Tesco FX branch (run by Travelex) probably has very limited access to the functions surrounding Cash Passport - they can sell, reload and cash out. A manager has access to another system for management checks such as a full list of sales and reloads this week.

So in a smaller location, it is entirely possible that it may take a week to flag up as a manager may not carry out these checks daily.

If you log onto the Cash Passport website you will be able to check your balance and how much was taken off your card, or you could call card services direct who would also be able to tell you this information so you could check what happened.

As a company, they would expect any errors to be rectified if possible - I was always taught if we give too little money then the customer would come back and complain so would be fixed. If we gave too much, then we could try and ask nicely but the customer is under no obligation to give it back as it was our error.
(Saying this, I gave £300 too much to a customer once - no chance of getting that back! Card services also made a mistake when loading my own Cash Passport and put an extra £140 on it - they took it back off in a couple of days!)

I am struggling to understand how he has managed to cash out your card twice as the system shouldn't allow him to do this.
If you check your account (either through the website or over the phone) and all seems ok, I would want to see transaction records to prove it was my transaction the error was made on.

As for paying it back if it was your transaction that was processed incorrectly - If it was me I would. I know how upsetting it is when you make an error, so would be eternally grateful if a customer came back and gave me the money back.

Jack - I see you made the common Euro/Dollar error! They need to move those keys so they aren't so close together!!

As for getting the customers details - they would have them all on system from purchasing the Cash Passport. If it had been just an error with currency, they wouldn't be able to contact OP.