My new employers are nuts but it's going to be me that gets in trouble.

[SolidGoldBrass]

I started a new job in the summer, for a large public sector organisation (I really don't want to say which one). The job is a part time/variable hours thing and I am paid an hourly rate. The first payment I got was way, way more than I expected, so I phoned the person who is technically my manager and said, look, I've been overpaid, how do I pay it back? And how much, exactly, do I need to pay back (I had a rough idea of how much I should have been paid, but not an exact one).

Nothing happened. About three weeks later the manager was on site when I was doing some work and I found a quiet moment and said, by the way they have not asked for the money back yet. The manager said emails would be sent, etc, it would be sorted out. Still nothing happened. I have dipped into the money a bit because it was there. And then I had to submit the next timesheet, so I posted it off and put a letter in to say: You over paid me, I haven't heard anything about fixing this, do you want to consider it a great big advance and not pay me again till next year, or what>

Nothing happened, no phone calls or emails or letters. And I checked my bank balance this morning and they have overpaid, massively, again.

It's nice to have a big chunk of money in the bank, obviously, but also it's obviously going to need paying back and given my usual poverty and number of people chasing me fo0r money it's not actually that good to have a chunk of money sitting in the bank, which doesn't really actually belong to me.

Any advice?>

as everyone else says
vital to email payroll (and hr?) and keep copies of all attempts to flag up issue
you can arrange a payment plan for repayments rather than a one off lump sum
if you are really lucky you might get to keep it i know a couple of people who managed this
when you repay - have a documented meeting where it is all spelled out and the exact amount to be repaid is agreed. otherwise they might come back a year later with a demand for more money
are you in a union? they can advise as well

Has anyone asked you for you vat registration number or company registration number? Or what umbrella organisation you are using? Did you get tbejobviaan agency? Does the amount being paid exactly equal your hourly rate times the number of hours worked?

If any of these are yes then I think they are treating you as a self employed contractor and you need to sort out your own tax, PAYE and vat, either as a limited company via an accountant or through an umbrella organisation (agency)

I don't have a vat registration number or anything like that. ISTR they have my national insurance number and bank details and that's about it. I will write to them (recorded delivery) on Monday.

is your payslip available to view on-line? I have been overpaid this month following a change of hours and I'm a public service employee. I just raised a service request on the resource management system. All detail are available on-line so opting to send a letter via recorded delivery wouldn't get you anywhere.

email is fine. how would you prove what was in a recorded letter anyway?

I was overpaid for years but because I had queried an additional payment that kept appearing on my payslip and kept the emails to prove it when they finally realised it was incorrect I was not asked to pay it back... result it may not work this way for you but do keep evidence of all the times you have pointed this out.

I assume from this You over paid me, I haven't heard anything about fixing this, do you want to consider it a great big advance and not pay me again till next year that you have been overpaid by a huge amount?!

COuld they have got a decimal point in the wrong place or something. I definitely agree that you need to put the money somewhere out of the way where you won't spend it and keep trying to get them to sort this. As others have said keep copies or notes of all communications you have with them.

Put money away in a completely separate bank account that you don't have access too and don't touch it. It can take organisations like this 6 months plus to sort this type of stuff out and they will be looking for the money back

This once happened to me and it took four years for the organisation to realise - by then I had long gone. It was around £1.5k. I didn't spend the money at the time, I did put it in a separate account but when I left and it hadn't been reslved I spent it. To my shame, I didn't pay them back as I just didn't have the money by then. I just ignored the letter and they didn't take it any further so I got away with it.

Well done Maggie :D

In general ignoring letters about debts is a bad idea. It's easier to deal with the organisation you owe than with any grunting meat head debt collection company who might buy the debt and chase it up.

My boss had this happen for a contract once - he had billed them for a number of days and they misread and thought it was that many hours, so he got 8 times what he was expecting!

Put the extra money on one side, and make sure you get and keep your payslips.

Wrong way round, he'd given hours and they thought it was days...