Double paid almost a year after leaving - and being asked to pay it back

Penguin_

I could understand if the amount was made in one amount, i.e. £780 but as there were 2 identical amounts I would have queried it when the transfers had been made.

Overpayments & mistakes do happen with payroll unfortunately, they should have contacted you earlier to let you know but the long & short of it is you do owe it.

General_Grant

yessuz said:

Thrugelmir said:

yessuz said:

Thrugelmir said:

A mistake has been made. You can either voluntarily refund the money or your ex-employer will pursue the matter to recover it. The choice is yours to make. 

Well sad.

Even sadder when people haven't been brought up to do the right thing without having to ask. 

Eh?!

How the hell would I or anyone else know thst they made a mistake "without asking"? Could you elaborate?

Or what you imply here?

The "without asking" was referring to someone coming to a forum and asking whether they need to return money which they had already learned from the sender had been remitted in error.

Ath_Wat

yessuz said:

MalMonroe said:

It isn't your money, though. That is reason enough to pay it back. Yes?

Well duh...

Although I thought (well, I still do) that they owe me few times more than actually paid. Hence was the question. More over the question was raised because I have no contractual obligations with them 

Anyhow, it's clear.

P.s. Out of curiosity (leaving all morality aside) - imagine someone transferred 100k out of the blue to your acc. Wouldn't you want to explore all options for finders-keepers and such?

The worst thing is that you genuinely think everyone would try to keep the money in those circumstances.  I can assure you that an awful lot of people would not want to "explore all options".  They'd give it back.  I get that it's hard for you to believe that, because you can't see how anyone could possibly ever think about people other than themselves, just as it is hard for those of us who would give it back to understand how anyone with your position could act quite so selfishly and be able to live with themselves afterwards.

And I know that even after I have said this all you will be thinking is "everyone would try to keep it really, they are all lying".

Dakta

Unfortunately I think without speaking about the op specifically you are largely right, such people do exist

What's amazing is how fast the attitude turns around when it's their own direct debit which gets paid out twice by accident, or if you get overcharged at the till or whatever analogy you prefer as it's all the same, Human error. A sudden turn on of the tear taps!

You really don't want a world where error is binding, imagine if your rent found itself out by a decimal place to the right because someone can't type 🙈

TBagpuss

General_Grant said:

yessuz said:

Thrugelmir said:

yessuz said:

Thrugelmir said:

A mistake has been made. You can either voluntarily refund the money or your ex-employer will pursue the matter to recover it. The choice is yours to make. 

Well sad.

Even sadder when people haven't been brought up to do the right thing without having to ask. 

Eh?!

How the hell would I or anyone else know thst they made a mistake "without asking"? Could you elaborate?

Or what you imply here?

The "without asking" was referring to someone coming to a forum and asking whether they need to return money which they had already learned from the sender had been remitted in error.

It's reasonable to expect that you would know there was a mistake given you got paid twice, and got double what you were entitled to. 

And I think that the comment was that it's sad someone had to ask whether or not they could keep money which wasn't theirs and which they know isn't theirs.

On the legal point, there have been multiple cases and the law is clear that you have to repay it. There is a very limited defence where someone has changed their position as a result of the money being paid to them, *and* they had a genuine and reasonable belief that the money was theirs.

But it's a fairly high bar. It isn't enough that you have spent the money, you have to be able to show that you spent it / changed your position in a way you wouldn't otherwise have done, as a result of the receipt of the money, and that it would unjust to expect you to pay it back. And of course you also have to be able to show that you had a reasonable belief that the money was in fact yours. 

I believe that in some circumstances it can amount to a criminal office of theft (theft by finding) 

Silvertabby

Dakta said:

Unfortunately I think without speaking about the op specifically you are largely right, such people do exist

What's amazing is how fast the attitude turns around when it's their own direct debit which gets paid out twice by accident, or if you get overcharged at the till or whatever analogy you prefer as it's all the same, Human error. A sudden turn on of the tear taps!

You really don't want a world where error is binding, imagine if your rent found itself out by a decimal place to the right because someone can't type 🙈

Not quite the same thing, but yesterday I did a big(ger than usual) shop at the local family butchers.

The chappie asked for £62, which is what I expected, so I just scanned my card.  Yes, I usually check the amount, but it's only a small shop and it was busy...

Got home, unpacked my shopping, and found that I had only been charged £32 on my card.

Went straight back.  Think manager was amazed at my honesty, thanked me and only took a further £25 instead of the £30 I owed.  So end result was that I got 2 chicken fillets 'free'.

It never occurred to me to think 'their mistake - their loss'.  

Jillanddy

pinkshoes said:

You do indeed have the option of refusing to return it.

Go spend it! Have fun!

But ultimately that money is not yours, so if you ignore their return request and they start legal action, you may find the amount you owe increases with added fees!

And your ability to obtain loans, mortgages and credit all in the toilet...

Jillanddy

yessuz said:

MalMonroe said:

It isn't your money, though. That is reason enough to pay it back. Yes?

Well duh...

Although I thought (well, I still do) that they owe me few times more than actually paid. Hence was the question. More over the question was raised because I have no contractual obligations with them 

Anyhow, it's clear.

P.s. Out of curiosity (leaving all morality aside) - imagine someone transferred 100k out of the blue to your acc. Wouldn't you want to explore all options for finders-keepers and such?

Leaving aside morals - but if we didn't leave aside morals I would explore all options to find out where it had come from and how to return it, because I actually know right from wrong - no I wouldn't because I am a grown up and understand that magic money doesn't exist, and if the money in my account wasn't put there by me then there had been some kind of error and I would have to return the money....because someone else is missing that money and in their shoes I would be distraught at the loss of that amount of money ... because I am not stupid enough to think the law would be on my side.

But I do agree that a minority of people would probably be immoral and stupid. That kind of combination generally leads them to bad places.

MattMattMattUK

yessuz said:

MalMonroe said:

It isn't your money, though. That is reason enough to pay it back. Yes?

Well duh...

Although I thought (well, I still do) that they owe me few times more than actually paid. Hence was the question. More over the question was raised because I have no contractual obligations with them 

Anyhow, it's clear.

P.s. Out of curiosity (leaving all morality aside) - imagine someone transferred 100k out of the blue to your acc. Wouldn't you want to explore all options for finders-keepers and such?

I tend not to leave morality aside, if I did I could just take what I wanted from pretty much anyone by force.

As to your hypothetical £100k transfer, no I would not, because I know that the law does not operate on that basis and that I would have to return it, I would also not ignore morality because I am not amoral.

Grumpy_chap

I entirely agree that the OP should repay the double payment received.

Also that the fictitious £100k should be repaid.

However, banks seem to want to have cake and eat cake here.  Whenever there is a thread of an individual accidentally sending funds to the incorrect destination (either fraud or online data entry), the banks seem to respond along the lines of "your mistake, nothing we can do"