My wife has been contionuosuly charged for a car park she hasn't used in nearly 2 years

JHMoneySaver

Hi, first time posting a thread here but I didn't really know where else to go as it is a bit of a niche subject.

My wife (let's call her G) is a nurse and used to work on a ward in a hospital. Now anyone who knows this job know that nurses get charged for the privilege of parking their car at work on a monthly basis and this is taken out of their salary on their payslip.

Over the pandemic, these charges were paused as a thank you to the nurses for their work. During this pause, G changed jobs within the same hospital trust to be a district nurse, no longer working inside a hospital and therefore no longer needing the car park. The government then reinstated the car parking fees around 18 months ago and we noticed that G was still getting charged around £28 a month. She asked her boss and emailed Salary Sacrifice to sort it and was told that it would.

Fast forward to today and we discover that they didn't sort it and that she is still getting charged £28 a month for the car park that she hasn't used in over 2 years. This totals to around £500 since the charges were reintroduced. She found out through salary sacrifice that there was a specific car park email address, which she contacted and was told that she should've cancelled the car park herself when she changed jobs (something that she was never told) and that they would only be prepared to refund 3 months of charges. We contested this and said that we would be asking for the full amount owed and we never had a response. Now it appears on her most recent payslip that they have just refunded the 3 months without allowing us to contest.

Basically, because she left while the charges were paused, she's been forgotten about on the system and she has never thought to check her payslip.

Is there anything we can to claim back the money we are owed? Or is this something we will have to just give up on?

Thanks!

Brie

Does she still have the email to and from the salary sacrifice team?  I'd be forwarding that to someone in payroll/HR to lodge an official complaint.  Thank them for refunding 3 months worth but state that it's not sufficient given that the team said it would be sorted and obviously they didn't do as they said they would.  

There may be some push back that this hasn't been chased sooner.  Obviously we are all supposed to examine our payslips in great detail every time we received one but the majority of us (I believe) don't.  I tend to check mine every few months - see if it makes sense (!!) and then if I'm happy with what I see and my other pays have been the same then I don't bother looking again for 3 - 4 months again.

JHMoneySaver

Thanks for the advise! I believe she does still have the emails so we will definitely lodge an official complaint. 

It's a strange one because I don't really know how far up the chain we can escalate this to. There's no sort of ombudsmen or some sort of body that we can put this to that I know of?

Is this something her union could help with do you reckon?

DullGreyGuy

It's fairly normal practice, outside of the NHS at least, that if you move internally that your elected "benefits" remain the same unless you take action to change them. 

JHMoneySaver said:
She asked her boss and emailed Salary Sacrifice to sort it and was told that it would.

So does she has the email after that saying it had been removed? Why didn't she check her next payslip to make sure it had been done, especially if you are going to say she never got the confirmation email confirming it had been done. 2 years seems a long time not to check your payslip after asking for a change!


How does the carpark work? I know in the one place I was with a carpark there were a finite number of spaces and a finite number of people could pay but you were guaranteed a parking space. As such there was a waiting list of those that wanted a space. 


Certainly put a complaint in with the evidence saying it would be removed but it does feel that the scale of the issue is in part due to her lax approach. 

JHMoneySaver

@DullGreyGuy I won't deny that she should've checked sooner. She is the type of person who gets bad anxiety over conflict so doesn't want to deal with it. She asked her bosses verbally to sort it, which they said they would. No emails and no paper trail unfortunately.

With the NHS car park, if you want use of the car park then you pay a flat rate and there's no guarantee of a space. She's moved to a different hospital base within the same trust. 

I know personally I only check my payslip to see the amount I'm being paid, I also check little things like student loan deductions but not everyone is like me. 

Lax approach or not, shes asked on a number of occasions to have this cancelled and it never was, she was only given the email address by the Salary Sacrifice team this month, even though she dealt with that team months ago.

DullGreyGuy

JHMoneySaver said:

No emails and no paper trail unfortunately.

But you said:

JHMoneySaver said:

She asked her boss and emailed Salary Sacrifice to sort it and was told that it would.

Is this not true then? Or do you mean she did email them but got nothing back at all, not even an acknowledgement? Even the sent email is some form of evidence but clearly not as strong as if they had responded as you initially indicated. 

Has she spoken to her boss again? They may recall the conversation and be able to confirm what steps they took and provide any evidence for that. 

JHMoneySaver said:

Lax approach or not, shes asked on a number of occasions to have this cancelled and it never was

Where does "a number of occasions" come from? We so far have one conversation with her boss and maybe or maybe not an email which was never acknowledged. 

You may feel I am picking on you but as someone who's done a lot of time dealing with complaints (separating the genuine from those trying it on) and dealing with disputes between our customer and third parties its these types of issues in versions of events that really damage someone's attempt either to argue they were in the right or to argue someone else was in the wrongs or even to get someone compassionate to the situation 

JHMoneySaver

I've just asked her to get a copy of all the emails she sent. 

She has told me on a number of occasions that she's chased this up. Her getting a copy of all emails sent on the subject will clear up whether she actually did or just said she did to get me off her case.

She's got a different boss now as she's moved teams but she may be able to ask her old boss to see if she remembers any conversations.

I'll know more when I have a list of all of the emails.

Jaybee_16

Gather your evidence as other posts above have said and speak to the union rep.