Money Moral Dilemma: Should I keep my overpaid final salary?

PoojaShah

I work in payroll and I would contact them to see what's happening, or at least don't spend it. 
Payroll/HR have been under a lot of stress during this pandemic (like everyone). My company held overpayments from March, and we are only now writing to people to let them know. 
If you owe money, then you owe it. Payroll /He will always contact you to get the money back, even if its years later. 

StoneleighCat

I think you have already done what is necessary, alerting the company and putting the money somewhere safe and not spending it.  Sit tight and wait for them to contact you which they may or my not do.

sunnyflower

You have made the effort, the ball is now in their court. I would tuck it away in another account and forget about it. If they come after it you can quite honestly say it has been sitting there whilst you were waiting for them to contact you. 

Comms69

It's literally a criminal offence to keep it, what's moral about this?!

ginger_chocolate

Companies just take ages about this kind of stuff. I was once overpaid some travel expenses and it took my employer the best part of a year to reclaim them even though I told them the day it happened. You've already done your part by alerting your ex-employer to the issue, it's up to them now to sort it out. Just keep the money ring-fenced and pay it back when they finally sort themselves out. You may as well benefit from the miniscule amount of interest savings accounts pay these days in the meantime...

Bolder19

I've had this happen to me as well. I did the same as you and informed the payroll/HR and then put the money in a savings account out of the way. Didn't hear back from them. 
You've done what you needed to do and informed them. It's not up to you to keep on at them if they want the money they need to contact you.
My thoughts are that even if they have 6 years to get the money back, if they haven't come back after they have finalised this years accounts then they probably won't as they won't be looking for it as it won't show as an error but Holiday pay.

annieshb

My firm left me without any money for 4 months due to admin error with my pension.
never got compensation either.
my advice you did the right thing and contacted them so why worry!

ArthursDad

I had an overpayment of nearly £2k as didn’t pay any tax, but put in savings. Recently had a letter from HMRC for underpaid tax for the last financial year. If it’s too good to be true it always is 

JayD

Do you really consider this to be a dilemma?

You have done the right thing. You have told them, they said they will correct it. You have put the money into savings and now you are earning interest on it while you wait for them to get back to you.

So what do you want people to tell you?

The ball is in their court and you are earning a little bit of interest while they take their time. It may be months, or even longer, but there is a very strong possibility that eventually they will ask for it back. All businesses of any size are subject to audits.

primrose_penguin

I agree with what most others have said. You have done the honest thing and notified them about the overpayment, I would keep it in your savings account and not worry about it, it will be there then when they eventually get round to asking for it to be repaid.
I definitely would not risk spending it. Things are taking a lot longer to get sorted since the Covid pandemic started.