Overpaid from work

Pulse

Ok, I'm going to try to post as much info as possible.

The company I used to work for are one of the biggest companies in the world (not sure if this matters), and they've asked me to repay overpayments made of £1400.

Trouble is, I can't afford to pay it back!

Now, I know I'm entitled to pay in installments from reading elsewhere (or at least I hope I'm allowed), but what is the minimum I can pay off? Obviously I've read places that you should just do £1 a month, but I presume they'd deem that as unreasonable. I do not want to pay out more than £10 a month, ideally.

Now, I don't want it to go to court, but what could happen if this does happen?

Also, I moved recently, and only got this post as my mate still lives at my old address. So technically if we'd lost touch, I would never have received it! (And also not received any payslips, thus not knowing why I was getting the money)... Does this do me any favours?

Basically, I just CANNOT afford to repay it, and realistically can only afford perhaps £10 a month going out right now due to just having taken out a huge loan.

fatgit

i wouldn't bother getting in touch with your old employers, if I were you

play the daft laddie, and claim you NEVER received the letters etc as they went to your old address

Lynxette

Surely it's their fault they paid the money, and it's not up to them to cry and sulk about it now? Maybe I'm wrong..

Gemmzie

They can find you pretty easily, they were your employer, they have your National Insurance number. The other posters are totally wrong.

You need to treat it as any other creditor. Only pay what you can comfortably afford per month and they should be fine with that.

Pulse

I can comfortably afford £10 a month, but will they accept that, as that means I'll be paying it back to them over approx 12 years!

Gemmzie

If not, you might have to prove that's all you can afford in court but if it's the company I suspect it might be, then £10 seems to be their standard offer.

Lavendyr

This probably isn't what you want to hear, but assuming they can prove the overpayments, you have to pay it back. It is their money, and you should have kept a closer track on it at the time, though obviously that's no help now!

A quick Google turned up this thread:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/employment-problems/111837-query-about-salary-overpayment.html

which suggests that they have to be reasonable about how you pay it back, but I would think that the more reasonable you are, the more reasonable they are likely to be as well, and £1 a month is not reasonable if you can afford more than this.

In my view, you should offer as much as you can afford, taking account of necessary monthly outgoings, and it might help to be able to prove to them (via a statement of affairs) that this is all you can genuinely afford - if you can prove that you can afford only £10 a month, they are more likely to be able to accept it without taking things further to try and get more.

If you cannot reach a resolution with them, they could take you to court and obtain a CCJ requiring you to pay back a set amount each month as agreed by the judge. On the up-side, this would mean that the judge would base the judgement on what you could reasonably afford, but for obvious reasons a CCJ is not a good thing to have on your credit report so it's really in your interest to try and find an amicable agreement before it gets that far.

I hope someone can come along and give you further advice but that's what I would do were I in your situation. Hope that helps!

Willsnarf1983

my company overpaid me nearly £600 quid and i'm currently paying it back at £100 a month, its a pain but it has to be done as its their money techincally.

Will

tigtag02

Do you know that you were overpaid?

Do you know when?

The usual resonable compromise to repay is the same number of months in which it took to reach the total overpayment (if that makes sense).

However, regardless of all this Gemzie's advice (post #4) is about as spot as you're gonna get

Ches

Before I offered anything I would write to ask them how they arrived at that figure and request a detailed account of how, why, where and when they overpaid you.

Mrs_Sparkle

Gemmzie and Lavendyr are right. I can tell you about it from the employer's point of view too if you like. In my experience it's unlikely that they're expecting to get the whole amount back. On past occasions I've taken a year's worth of payments from the employee then told them to forget it, especially if it runs into a new financial year. It must have been a nasty surprise for you but there was more than likely a clause in your contract saying it was your duty to inform the employer of any mistakes in your pay.