salary overpayment

No. Just a normal employee who noticed that there was an unusual extra payment in his salary. Could be genuine but not sure. Theres another employee with the same name so it could have been meant for them?

honesty is the best policy.....the recipient could be waiting for it and will ask the employer to check where it is or where it went, when they don't get it. Then when they look deeper into it and find it there just might be a few Q's asked.

I don't know about the legal position, but would ask that employee if, should he be given too much change by a shopkeeper, he would tell the shopkeeper, or just hang onto it.

The fact is that it's not his money and he acquired it due to someone else's mistake.

If he were an MP I know what the answer would be.

Rob Graham

The employee can hardly be held responsible for an error by the employer, but is nevertheless not entitled to retain and use the overpayment for his own benefit. In the circumstances, I think all the employer can do is ask for a repayment or underpay by an equivalent amount next time.

In the meantime, if the employee is honest, he will inform his employer and return any overpayment.

There's a bit of a discrepancy between your two posts, however. In the first you suggest that the employee didn't notice the overpayment. In the second, you say he did. They can't both be true.

I have a neice who is going through such a problem. She works part-time for an NHS trust in the SouthWest. For the past three years she should have been paid 'pro-rata' for the part-time hours she worked - but in fact she was being paid full-time rate. Her joining the job coincided with a pay rise and she claims she did not realise she was being paid more than she was entitled to.

Her employer is saying that she has to pay back the three years of overpayments (which add up to a fair amount of money!) although there is certainly no suggestion of any additional 'action' being taken against her.

Her Union is trying to work out some compromise, but it looks as though she will be forced to to repay the full amount of the overpayment. The last thing I heard was that she was being offered the opportunity to receive a reduced wage until the overpayment is paid off - or, alternatively, work extra hours each week for no pay, to make-up the overpayment.

As she only works part-time because of child-care commitments, and her husband is a low-paid worker, she is facing considerable financial hardship via an error made by her employers.

Ret.

Didnt notice immediately. Has noticed now.

Before repaying it all, perhaps she should check how the CTC/WTC folk will respond (assuming she was claiming it). If they refuse to pay extra CTC/WTC, then I reckon she should retain that bit of the salary overpayment. (Assuming, of course, that she had declared her actual pay.)

I'll raise that with her mum and dad. I would hope that her union will have looked into all these issues...............

Ret.

I have a work colleague who's daughter has or had exactly the same problem. I must check to see if it has been resolved.

But I must add, I have never had a job where I did not know exactly how much I was earning and paid so to say someone did not realise, I do find hard to believe or lets say understand.

CTC/WTC?

I don't disagree!

Ret.

Sorry - Child Tax Credit and/or Working Tax Credit.

Speaks volumes for the quality of auditing... one, or even two years, maybe understandable, but three years...?!! Makes me wonder how easy it would be to have Mickey Mouse on NHS payroll for a year or two, then remove all records of his existence.

In my job there are lots of additional premium payments, depending on exactly which hours I work. But I know what my basic pay is, and I`d certainly be aware if I was working part time hours and getting full time pay.

I knew an NHS Consultant Physician who was over-paid by 2000 on traveling expenses in the 1980s. He tried to pay it back but the Helath Authority (as it was then) said there was no way for them to accept the money so he could keep it!

I agree, but i would not be too explicit in bringing it to their attention. I would write a letter to the employer saying "I think there may have been an error in my salary payment of XX/XX/XXXX, please will you check it". I would then consider my moral duty discharged.

Robert

I agree, but i would not be too explicit in bringing it to their attention. I would write a letter to the employer saying "I think there may have been an error in my salary payment of XX/XX/XXXX, please will you check it". I would then consider my moral duty discharged.

These sound like weasel words to me. If the employee knows the mistake then they should be candid with the employer. You obviously don't understand the word moral.

Peter Crosland

ever been an employer, I have to 10 people, something I would not do again. While they jump down your throat when their pay is negative (say you missed an hours OT), you don't hear a thing when it swings the other way.

Here's another good one, I gave one employee as much paid leave as he wanted when a critical illness struck his daughter...........he had 6 weeks paid leave at that point. When it came to the time I had to terminate all employees (closing down due to lack of work) I paid them all over and above the governments redundancy requirement and he was the only one to complain cos he thought I had shorted him by one week. Needless to say when I showed him the regulatory figures compared to what he got he went very quiet....I did not mention his paid time off a few years before.