Can an employer deduct money from wages to compensate for a mistake? Post Office banking error.

LeafGreen

What amount of money is involved?

pinkshoes

Rgee said:

Hi Everyone,

I'm not sure if this is the best forum for this question - hopefully someone will point me in the right direction if it's not.

A friend of mine recently started work in a village shop that incorporates a Post Office.  A couple of days ago, during a busy period, they made a mistake with a customer using the Post Office.

The customer wanted to withdraw money from their Post Office account.  Without realising it at the time, my friend processed the request and gave the customer the money they wanted.... but accidentally recorded the transaction as a deposit.

So the customer received the money that they expected but when they check their account the will see that the money that they received in person has also been added to their account rather than deducted!

My friend's employer has said that they will take this 'double amount' from their wages until it is paid off.

Some people have raised concerns that this is not legal - but it may be that the employer is actually doing my friend a favour by not demanding repayment of the money in a lump sum.

I do realise that there is some painful history regarding Post Office accounting, but wouldn't they be able to notify the customer of the obvious error and rectify it without just demanding that my friend makes up the difference?

Many thanks in advance for your advice.

RGee  

Are you sure this is what they actually said rather than someone trying to scaremonger them?

This is just a straight forward banking error. The person whose bank account it is needs to be contacted, the incorrect transaction reversed, and the correct transaction carried out.

If the person refuses to give the money back, then as it is not their money and they received it in error, the Post Office can take the person to court to get it back.

Your friend will potentially lose their job.

Marcon

As others have said, what's wrong with simply correcting the error? The customer will know they withdrew money rather than paying it in, and if they are informed promptly, won't have a leg to stand on if they try to challenge the correction.

MikeJXE

Is this actually a post office problem. ? Surely this person is an employee of the shop and its  the postmaster who has decided on this course of action ? 

MalMonroe

This "The customer wanted to withdraw money from their Post Office account.  Without realising it at the time, my friend processed the request and gave the customer the money they wanted.... but accidentally recorded the transaction as a deposit."

Is crazy. I also live in a village where we have a village shop that is also a post office.

If there was an error - deposit versus withdrawal, the machine in our PO would indicate that. Certainly the one in our PO would anyway.

Surely the customer will be honest enough to return the money they've been 'given' once they check their account. The bank should be able to verify the error as well. We're not living in the dark ages any more. We have the technology.   

Everyone makes mistakes. This one can easily be rectified and it's difficult to understand why it hasn't been. I blame the person in charge at the PO for allowing a new member of staff to be on duty, unsupervised, at a busy time. 

Lessons to be learned here I should think but this is something that is so easy to put right, without anybody having to have any money deducted from their wages. That's just really the sign of a bad employer.

DullGreyGuy

pinkshoes said:

Rgee said:

Hi Everyone,

I'm not sure if this is the best forum for this question - hopefully someone will point me in the right direction if it's not.

A friend of mine recently started work in a village shop that incorporates a Post Office.  A couple of days ago, during a busy period, they made a mistake with a customer using the Post Office.

The customer wanted to withdraw money from their Post Office account.  Without realising it at the time, my friend processed the request and gave the customer the money they wanted.... but accidentally recorded the transaction as a deposit.

So the customer received the money that they expected but when they check their account the will see that the money that they received in person has also been added to their account rather than deducted!

My friend's employer has said that they will take this 'double amount' from their wages until it is paid off.

Some people have raised concerns that this is not legal - but it may be that the employer is actually doing my friend a favour by not demanding repayment of the money in a lump sum.

I do realise that there is some painful history regarding Post Office accounting, but wouldn't they be able to notify the customer of the obvious error and rectify it without just demanding that my friend makes up the difference?

Many thanks in advance for your advice.

RGee  

Are you sure this is what they actually said rather than someone trying to scaremonger them?

This is just a straight forward banking error. The person whose bank account it is needs to be contacted, the incorrect transaction reversed, and the correct transaction carried out.

If the person refuses to give the money back, then as it is not their money and they received it in error, the Post Office can take the person to court to get it back.

Your friend will potentially lose their job.

The OP hasnt said how much the withdraw was supposed to be but if we say it was £20 then the till at the end of the day would have been £40 light as it'd have expected the £20 deposit to be put in but instead the OP took out £20.  Therefore to balance the till the OP would be paying "double".

We obviously don't know if it was £10 or £1,000... there would have to be some realism over the prospect of a bank suing a customer to attempt to recover money lost by an employee's error. It would have to be a very substantial withdraw just to cover the barristers fee. 

Rgee

Thank you all for your comments so far.

I have had a discussion with my friend and can give a little more detail.

The customer was making use of the Post Office's facility for accessing their account with a different bank.

The customer wanted to withdraw £300 from their bank account (bank unknown) - as if they were using a cashpoint. However, my friend accidentally pressed the 'deposit' button and gave the customer their requested £300.

So, as DullGreyGuy correctly said...  the customer received £300 and then their bank account was credited £300 - making them £600 better off!

I think there must be a way to trace the transaction and rectify it, and I think the employer should have looked into that rather than insisting that my friend has to make up the shortfall - which on a minimal wage is a real 'hit'!

My friend has tried filling in the suggested enquiry form on the Post Office website - without response.

Does anyone have any contact details for someone in the Post Office who would know the correct procedure?
  
If it is appropriate for the employer to recover the shortfall from my friend, and it is not permissible for the employer to dock wages, then is the employer able to demand a one-off payment?  

Thanks in advance.