to keep quiet about being overpaid by my ex employer

[HappilyOverpaid]

I left my job a week ago. I have just looked at my bank statement and they have paid me nearly 3 times what I was expecting for the last 2 weeks I worked.

I only worked half the month and have been paid nearly 50% more than I would get for a full month.

I can't think of any logical reason, I had no holiday owing to me that they should have paid me for, no overtime, bonus nothing outstanding. Could this be a tax adjustment (payslip hasn't arrived yet so can't identify reason)? I start a new job in two weeks time so am only going to be not working for 3 weeks so wouldn't have expected a big tax adjustment as the PAYE would be done cumulatively so would only be a small adjustment to the tax I would have thought not this much.

In the past they have made some serious mistakes with my pay including massively overpaying my bonus, and due to the area of the business I worked in and needing to maintain professional integrity, I always came clean about their errors and paid the bonus back and corrected other errors they made.

AIBU to think I have left now and actually this is their mistake and keep it?

I left a job and was overpaid for a strike day despite notifying them that I had been on strike and telling them I wanted the money taken out of my last payslip. Bastards did EXACTLY what I had been trying to avoid, and landed me with a bill 4 months after I'd left.

i hadn't realised btw - the last month I didn't work the full month and went straight into another job so last thing I could be bothered to do was pick through my payslip. So confess, or it will come bck to bite you IME

Of course you should tell them, their incompetence doesn't make it okay for you to steal.

Sounds to me like you may have worked a month in hand i.e you were not paid for your first month in the job. Therefore, when you leave you get that month in with your final wage?

Are you happy to risk your reference, your career, your integrity and your reputation for 4 weeks net salary?

If your payslip shows a discrepancy then you need to contact your employer and pay it back. If it doesn't you should contact them anyway to ensure HMRC aren't in error.

All this 'put it away in a savings account until they ask' reminds me of Father Ted and the children's charity. "it was just resting in my account!" !

It could be:

• redundancy money
• notice pay
• accrued holiday pay
• Christmas bonus!

But they may have also paid you for the normal full month and be planning to claw some of this back the next month (which is what my last employer did when I left).

Wait for pay slip and see if it all adds up.

I agree with the 'wait for payslip' advice. If there is a discrepancy on the payslip I would then query it. You can't risk your reputation for 4 weeks pay.

Chsnces are they will spot the error either by next month or it will get picked up on a financial audit.

I've had to issue debt recovery proceedings before now on behalf of companies who had overpaid wages in error - so please don't assume they won't want it back, or accept a proposal to pay it back in instalments. Keep it to one side, and make sure if they do ask for it, you're ready and able to pay it back immediately.

Chances

Well the payslip has just landed on the doormat.

So it seems they have made a large adjustment to pay me for holiday pay.

I went through this with my boss before I left and we worked out I wasn't entitled to any holiday pay, I had taken the holiday I had accrued and was in an even position (had taken exactly 75% of a year's holiday entitlement and holiday year ran April to March and I left in December)

So someone in payroll has seen fit to manually adjust my salary for holiday pay....and my boss reviews the BACs run for his direct reports before the money goes out so I don't know why he hasn't picked up on this either as it is not an insubstantial amount.

I am so cross about this as I was forever correcting Payroll's mistakes and even helped implement some systems to pick up some of the errors they used to make on payroll, this now requires me to contact them pay the money back etc.

I will tell them but to be honest it helps my cashflow until I get my salary for my new job at the end of January so will put it aside and deal with it in the new year.

Can I also say whilst I agree it is morally wrong to keep this I don't think it is the same as "stealing" or "theft" there was no pre-meditation or planning to take this money from my side this is a mistake they have made and whilst it would be dishonest to keep it I don't think it is the same as intentionally taking something you aren't entitled to.

If it isn't owed to you legally it is theft, regardless of who's fault the overpayment is.

Legallly it may be, morally I think OP has a point. She didn't steal anything. in fact she did her level best to ensure the figure were in order. The company is responsible for fucking up. Why is it down to the OP to sort out their errors? (I know in practice the money is in her a/c so it is her problem, but it's one they have created and dumped onto her.)

Oh god just looked up definition of theft

A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and ?thief? and ?steal? shall be construed accordingly.

Appropriation is sny assumption by a person of the rights of an owner amounts to an appropriation, and this includes, where he has come by the property (innocently or not) without stealing it, any later assumption of a right to it by keeping or dealing with it as owner.

So because I am aware that the money doesn't belong to me if I keep it, it is theft.

I will contact them in the new year and let them know :-(

Well done you. Can't believe how many people seem it to think it's okay because they've cocked up before. They might be incompetent fools but that doesn't make keeping what isn't yours okay.
< Christmas morality lecture >

You'll sleep better for doing that and you are well within your rights to pay it back in instalments.

I was overpaid for years in my last job, I queried, and my line manager queried an 'additional payment' that appeared every month on my payslip and were told no its an adjustment cos of payscales etc, it eventually came to light that I should not have been getting this adjustment and cos I had e-mails showing I had queried it big boss told Hr that I should not have to pay it back. It stopped being paid and when I got my payslip turned out to be lighter by over 100 pounds so god knows how much extra I had from them over the years, lots and lots I guess. I was being made redundant at the time so was a bit at the thought that I had done well out of them, took my redundancy pay three months later so did not have a reduced salary for long.

I am shocked so many people don't consider it theft.

Glad you are going to tell them, as well as the legal aspect it would be awful to have to pay it back in 5 years time when you may not have it. At our place they always agree to receive it back in installments - I am not sure they can say no to that.

i think there was some belief that if its their error you don't have to pay it back, seem to remember someone saying this when a bank error paid money into the wrong account.