Overpaid Last Year

mrspi11

Hi,

- I worked for a company for 2 days in September 2017. They paid me £600.
- In April 2018 they email me saying they paid me twice, please return the money
- I check my bank account statements and to my surprise, they are right. But the money has been spent unknowingly.
- I inform them that i am recently unemployed (as of April 2018) and will struggle to return this money
- they email back with a deadline of 2 weeks
- I do not respond
- They chased me up today threatening legal action
- i inform them i have very recently started working again but given the period of unemployment I can not pay in full. I offer installments of £50 a month
- They demand £200 a month or they will take me to court
- Eventually I offer £70 a month
- They demand £100 a month or they will take legal action (they are an international media company).

Do I have any rights here? I wish I had noticed the overpayment initially. My invoicing was correct.

Urgent advice needed! I really don't have £600 spare to give to them.

sangie595

Sorry, but it's not an easy one. You don't have any "rights" - it's a debt and you obviously know you need to repay it. If you'd been keeping a check on your bank account, you'd have noticed a large amount adrift like that, so I'm afraid claiming you didn't know won't cut much ice. But I am sympathetic to your predicament. I suggest you simply start paying the £70. Going to court when your are paying it back is probably not a worthwhile activity for them, thedifficult as court might think that too much for an installment. Send the Laurent and a letter saying " here's the first installment of £70 and I'll send the same amount on the xxth day of every month until the amount is repaid". Then stick to it. I can't guarantee they won't go to court, but it would be downright silly of them to do so!

z1a

"- I check my bank account statements and to my surprise, they are right. But the money has been spent unknowingly."

To your surprise!! I don't think they'd believe that, I don't.

mrspi11

I don't check my bank statements regularly.

That being said, I'm very willing to pay it back. If I had the money.

marliepanda

mrspi11 wrote: »

I don't check my bank statements regularly.

That being said, I'm very willing to pay it back. If I had the money.

You’ll have to pay it back regardless.

Seriously though, you don’t bother to check your statements regularly yet managed to spend £600 more than you should have had? You’re lucky you’re not £600 overdrawn now!

mrspi11

I've made it quite clear I want to pay it back, in instalments.

At no point have I said I do not want to pay it back. The issue is the size of the instalments.

And actually, I am in overdraft But not for too much longer as I've started working again. However, this is not the issue. The issue is the size of the instalments.

And yes. Over the course of half a year I spent the £600.

marliepanda

Are you working the same job which commanded a £300 day rate previously? This may be why they are not considering a lower sum as you want to pay back this amount over 9 months (after already delaying them 2 months) for a sum they paid you for 2 days work.

mrspi11

No Im currently working a different job. My freelance rate varies between £150 a day to £400 a day. Currently Im on a much lower rate then £300 a day (unfortunately). This all happened during my house renovation, which is why i lost track of whats going in and out of my account. Mostly money was going out!

I may just give them £100 a month. I've just asked if they'll accept a credit card payment.

beckysheffield

mrspi11 wrote: »

No Im currently working a different job. My freelance rate varies between £150 a day to £400 a day. Currently Im on a much lower rate then £300 a day (unfortunately). This all happened during my house renovation, which is why i lost track of whats going in and out of my account. Mostly money was going out!

I may just give them £100 a month. I've just asked if they'll accept a credit card payment.

I was going to ask how could you spend so much unwillingly despite living so close to the breadline.

mrspi11

Well, lesson learned.

Now creating spreadsheets for my finances, and will be alot more organised in the future.

w00519772

mrspi11 wrote: »

Hi,

- I worked for a company for 2 days in September 2017. They paid me £600.
- In April 2018 they email me saying they paid me twice, please return the money
- I check my bank account statements and to my surprise, they are right. But the money has been spent unknowingly.
- I inform them that i am recently unemployed (as of April 2018) and will struggle to return this money
- they email back with a deadline of 2 weeks
- I do not respond
- They chased me up today threatening legal action
- i inform them i have very recently started working again but given the period of unemployment I can not pay in full. I offer installments of £50 a month
- They demand £200 a month or they will take me to court
- Eventually I offer £70 a month
- They demand £100 a month or they will take legal action (they are an international media company).

Do I have any rights here? I wish I had noticed the overpayment initially. My invoicing was correct.

Urgent advice needed! I really don't have £600 spare to give to them.

Did you receive a payslip? If the answer is no then explain this to them and ask for more time to pay it back. If the answer is yes, then I don't know what you can do.