Overpayment of wages

[happylittlebear]

I was employed on a 6 month contract in an NHS role & left at the end of April.

I was paid in May and assumed it was my final salary but have also been paid again today.

I called HR & Payroll today to say I thought this was a mistake and they said that my line manager did not inform them that I had left & hasn't sent them my leavers form so they still have me on record as an employee, apparently until they do this I will continue to be paid...

I have tried to contact my line manager but she is on leave, her line manager is on long term sick. What do I do?

Does anyone have any experience of this?

I don't want this to drag on for ages while they sort it out and continue to pay me in the meantime, the money is sitting in my bank but I really don't want it in there if its not supposed to be!

I'm also worried that the payment I received in May was an error and they will want that back too, because I assumed it was my final pay, it has all gone on bills.

Any advice?

[Twirlbitesruinedmylife]

Sorry this has happened to you it really shouldn't. If I were you I'd Send an email to the head of HR and tell her that you need this sorted asap. Explain your concerns re the May payment and let her know you have spent the money in good faith and will need time to repay any overpayment. If you don't get a satisfactory response ask for the email address of the chair of audit.

[happylittlebear]

Thanks for the reply I will send an email tomorrow.

The most frustrating thing from today was that me saying I no longer work there doesn't seem to be good enough to stop this situation, someone needs to fill in a bloody form!

[slev]

This is a real problem at our company - line managers are useless at the admin side so people often get overpaid when they leave. Also, the debt process is quite slow so it can take a couple of months to calculate what you owe. The best thing I bay suggest is to keep the overpayment separate while HR get their act together and then if it does turn out you owe them the May payment as well you should be able to agree some kind of repayment plan where you repay it over 3/6 months. Just be clear with them as to what you can afford and remember it's their mistake, not yours!

[flowery]

You should be able to work out fairly easily whether the May amount is an overpayment. Throughout your contract presumably you were paid the same or a more or less similar amount at the end of each month? If it was a 6 month contract you should have been paid 6 times, or should be able to check your bank statements to see whether payment for your first months work was at the end of that month or if you were always a month behind.

Keep the money separate until they sort it out- if your line manager is on leave that should only be a matter of a couple of weeks.

[tungthai]

The NHS are notorious for doing this.

I worked in the NHS and my mistake resulted in a very low paid employee being overpaid. It wasn't a huge amount but it went undetected for 2 years. When the mistake was picked up the Finance Department insisted on collecting the repayment back over 4 months. I wanted them to collect in 24 monthly instalments so it wasn't such a huge shock for her. The employee was left with next to nothing.

That mistake still haunts me 20 years later .

[virgil]

They will reclaim the money so separate it out and chase them regularly to get it sorted out. DO NOT SPEND IT!!

[happylittlebear]

Thank you for all the replies, I have had an email from someone higher up the line manager chain to say the forms are being sent today so I'm hoping it won't take too long to sort out. I've moved this months payment in to a separate account that I don't use do it doesn't get spent and I'll have to deal with Mays payment later (if and when it turns out I owe it back!)

Bloody nightmare!