Overpayment of wages - after leaving

Hoenir

TELLIT01 said:

It's not always easy to know how much should be in final pay, particularly if leaving part way through a month.  

Payslips are extremely detailed. Employees in my personal experience check them closely. Soon enough to question if they believe themselves short paid. Likewise stay stum if overpaid. In the hope no one will notice. 

Savvy_Sue

Hoenir said:

TELLIT01 said:

It's not always easy to know how much should be in final pay, particularly if leaving part way through a month.  

Payslips are extremely detailed. Employees in my personal experience check them closely. Soon enough to question if they believe themselves short paid. Likewise stay stum if overpaid. In the hope no one will notice. 

My experience aligns more with TELLIT01's than yours, Hoenir!

Yes, payslips are detailed. My former colleagues often failed to open them - if what went into their bank account looked about right, why would they? seemed to be their attitude.

I'm sure some of them didn't often check what went into their bank account.

And if they DID look at the payslip, they often didn't understand them, detailed or not. "You've deducted sick pay!" they'd wail. Yes, I'd explain. We have to give you Statutory Sick Pay - look, it's added there. But then yes, we deduct it over here, because we don't pay it on top of your normal salary. See - added here, deducted there, net pay the same as last month.

Plus, if someone only worked part of the month, there are different ways of calculating the deduction. 

I agree that if the final salary was the same as usual then the OP should have realised something was up, and there may have been a clue on the payslip, but it's not necessarily easy.

And yes, it will have to be repaid ...

EnPointe

Savvy_Sue said:

Hoenir said:

TELLIT01 said:

It's not always easy to know how much should be in final pay, particularly if leaving part way through a month.  

Payslips are extremely detailed. Employees in my personal experience check them closely. Soon enough to question if they believe themselves short paid. Likewise stay stum if overpaid. In the hope no one will notice. 

My experience aligns more with TELLIT01's than yours, Hoenir!

Yes, payslips are detailed. My former colleagues often failed to open them - if what went into their bank account looked about right, why would they? seemed to be their attitude.

I'm sure some of them didn't often check what went into their bank account.

And if they DID look at the payslip, they often didn't understand them, detailed or not. "You've deducted sick pay!" they'd wail. Yes, I'd explain. We have to give you Statutory Sick Pay - look, it's added there. But then yes, we deduct it over here, because we don't pay it on top of your normal salary. See - added here, deducted there, net pay the same as last month.

Plus, if someone only worked part of the month, there are different ways of calculating the deduction. 

I agree that if the final salary was the same as usual then the OP should have realised something was up, and there may have been a clue on the payslip, but it's not necessarily easy.

And yes, it will have to be repaid ...

exactly the number of people moaning that they 'took the money  back ' on the next  pay slip  when  an additional pay run   had been done due to  the business making an error    and the  process of explaining this ...

M_anonymous

You KNEW you was overpaid, why didn't YOU do something about it? 

Take responsibility for your own actions.  

Exodi

Savvy_Sue said:

Hoenir said:

TELLIT01 said:

It's not always easy to know how much should be in final pay, particularly if leaving part way through a month.  

Payslips are extremely detailed. Employees in my personal experience check them closely. Soon enough to question if they believe themselves short paid. Likewise stay stum if overpaid. In the hope no one will notice. 

My experience aligns more with TELLIT01's than yours, Hoenir!

Well I'm going to side with @Hoenir on here.

I've certainly noticed an uncanny ability by employees to immediately notice an underpayment of even a few pounds, but simultaneously not notice when they've been overpaid hundreds or thousands of pounds (though of course in every case the money is also quickly spent and it turns into a major drama trying to get the overpaid money back).

This forum itself is a testament to this, I very rarely see an overpayment thread along the lines of "I've been overpaid, what is the best way to let the employer know and return the money", it's always "I've been caught, how can I get away with not giving it back?".

I'm just imagining if the shoe was on the other foot and I was transferring my company money for personal fuel or something, and I accidentally added a zero and paid them £600 instead of £60 or something, and their response was "not our fault you made a mistake... at best we can pay back £5 a month". I bet the OP would have kittens.

ubeauty101 said:

Through no fault of my own i have to try and find £500 from somewhere

Can i fight this in court if they pursue it

You could use the £500 they overpaid you?

Respectfully, trying to fight this in court would be daft, you'd lose (unless you disagree that they've overpaid you).

Your best option would be giving their money back, or coming up with a payment plan (£50 or £100 a month or something, not some mickey mouse £5 a month offer). Just because a company might not bother taking someone to court over a mickey mouse payment offer, doesn't mean we should all strive to be as insufferable as possible.

Savvy_Sue

Exodi said:

Savvy_Sue said:

Hoenir said:

TELLIT01 said:

It's not always easy to know how much should be in final pay, particularly if leaving part way through a month.  

Payslips are extremely detailed. Employees in my personal experience check them closely. Soon enough to question if they believe themselves short paid. Likewise stay stum if overpaid. In the hope no one will notice. 

My experience aligns more with TELLIT01's than yours, Hoenir!

Well I'm going to side with @Hoenir on here.

I've certainly noticed an uncanny ability by employees to immediately notice an underpayment of even a few pounds, but simultaneously not notice when they've been overpaid hundreds or thousands of pounds (though of course in every case the money is also quickly spent and it turns into a major drama trying to get the overpaid money back).

To be fair, my lot were as unlikely to notice an underpayment as an overpayment! It rarely happened, but we did at one point notice that a new starter had been paid at the rate mentioned in the original advert, agreed before a % increase was applied, only we'd failed to apply it to this person. I think their offer letter had the right salary in, but we were paying a little less, and didn't pick it up for a few months. 

I don't recall any other underpayment situations, except for On Call, and that rarely happened because we paid those a month in arrears, ie do On Call in February and we'll pay you for it at the end of March. But every now and again someone would do a late swap, not tell anyone wearing a Payroll hat, and wonder whether we'd paid it or not. Asking me about it was apparently easier than looking at their payslip ...