Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

What do I do??? Am I going to have no money?

166 replies

namechanged707 · 17/01/2019 12:01

Okay...
I work part time and would expect between £500-£600 on a normal month for my job (that was the expectation).
I claim childcare for my baby in a baby wing and get help with housing costs as my DP is in education full time until summer.
December was my first month working there and I was paid close to £1,200! I assumed Christmas bonus - I did email the manager to enquire and double check but heard nothing.
I have to give my payslip in on Monday to be able to reclaim for temporary help with childcare and rent. The payslip says nothing about a Christmas bonus, just a basic wage of £1,280 and then tax/NI deductions.
Are they going to think I'm lying and tell them that that shouldn't be my normal wage? If I don't get my temporary help from them then I wouldn't be able to pay rent or nursery fees.
If it was a mistake on works part, are they going to make me pay it back after a month???

I'm so stressed that I won't be able to pay rent or childcare!

OP posts:
Hiphopopotamous · 17/01/2019 15:24

I got overpaid on maternity leave (normal full time salary when it should have been 50% for 3 months or something) - I told them the first month but they kept making the same error.
Thankfully I didn't spend it but they said they couldn't have me just send the money back, they had to take it out of future pay checks. It got paid back when I returned to work 6 months later over a number of months, at their request.

Worriedmummybekind · 17/01/2019 15:29

I agree FrogsAreMean
I’ve worked in HR in two large companies and as a manager in a very small company. In any situation where we had made a payroll error, we would accept it was partially our fault and seek to resolve it with as little stress as possible.
We certainly wouldn’t be looking to fire someone Hmm
Some of the above posters have clearly worked for some very cutthroat organisations!

strivingtosucceed · 17/01/2019 15:36

I feel like i'm missing something here:

  1. You were paid more than expected and thought you had been given a bonus which came to double your wage in total, even though you'd only worked there 12 days.
  2. You knew you'd have to use this wage/payslip to claim for benefits in future, and also knew there was a cut-off for the benefits.
  3. You contacted your employer but because you hadn't heard anything after Christmas (I'm assuming you'd have gotten paid around this period too) you decided to spend ALL of the money in less than 2 weeks.
  4. You're now running helter skelter because you now have to give in this payslip to get your benefits but it puts you over your threshold & you also have to pay your work back after 'finding out' it wasn't actually yours.

OP doesn't seem silly to me, she seems quite calculated and slightly fraudulent. Not much effort seemed to be made until she found out she'd possibly not get her rent money. IMO you need to hope you can pay in installments, and if not, borrow money from someone and pay them back as you can afford. Let this be a lesson to people who believe they can spend money that isn't theirs and plead ignorance when the error is noticed.

Sugarhunnyicedtea · 17/01/2019 15:40

strivingtosucceed I've read the OP again and it does come across that way. It now appears that benefits will only take into account the salary she should have received so they won't be affected either.

HunterHearstHelmsley · 17/01/2019 15:55

Anything from Payroll yet, OP?

You will need to think about what to do if they won't let you pay back in instalments. Anything you can sell? Anyone you can borrow off? Credit card (not ideal)?

Original poster
namechanged707 · 17/01/2019 16:03

I can't even answer the replies saying I'm fraudulent, that's completely out of the question. As previously stated, Christmas bonuses' aren't considered at all when claiming through benefits where I am. Everyone was talking about bonuses. I thought it was strange to get one so early in, contact my manager to double check and got ignored. I made a mistake in spending it but I honestly assumed it was a bonus.

@HunterHearstHelmsley nothing yet. Not sure when it'll be. No one I can borrow off, no credit card, nothing I can sell.

After the claim for help with housing costs and nursery, I get about £500 to buy food, electricity, gas, all transport and anything my child may need. If I was fraudulent in nature I'd clearly be better off than that!!!!! It was a mistake in which I assumed - given the month and listening to colleagues and having my queries ignored - that I'd received a Christmas bonus. I was reckless with it and had a few days out and bought extra presents for DS and paid off all of my gas bill and got a big Christmas dinner because I've never been able to afford any luxuries before, which isn't an excuse for being so silly as to not push on with trying to double check the payment, but I've clearly learned a lesson from the situation I'm in now!!!!!

OP posts:
Bluelady · 17/01/2019 16:13

What a nasty judgemental thread this is.

WhentheDealGoesDown · 17/01/2019 16:22

Some companies give you a Christmas bonus if you haven't been there long, it depends if it is a target driven bonus or purely a Christmas bonus. One company I worked for had a Christmas bonus which everyone had the same regardless of salary or time worked at the company, whereas now my bonus is performance related and a percentage of pay.

Faultymain5 · 17/01/2019 16:24

namechanged707, I think you need to be prepared, that if complete strangers think you may have acted fradulently (because of the speed in which you spent money that was not yours), that your new employers may think the same. I don't know you and never met you, but people are cynical and very judgmental. I'm sure you'd be surprised to know that there are people who would see the double amount and not bat an eyelid saying "well it's their mistake".

I can't see how or why you would do that, as it wouldn't benefit you in any way (other than those two weeks over Christmas). I would do as others have suggested and try to sell something so you can pay something (for me roof over my head comes first, but everyone's different). Good luck

CottonSock · 17/01/2019 16:27

600 on days out, really?

HunterHearstHelmsley · 17/01/2019 16:32

Do you work in a shop? How about seeing if they will let you work the extra to pay it back rather than taking the money back? It's a bit of a long shot but no harm in asking.

Myheartbelongsto · 17/01/2019 16:39

You spent 600 on days out and extra gifts!

How many insurable weeks on payslip

MNHQ
AnyaMumsnet · 17/01/2019 16:43

Hello everyone,

We've had a number of reports from people concerned about this thread so, as we usually do in these circs, we're putting our heads round the door with some important reminders.

Right now we can't see any evidence to indicate that the OP isn't above board – if we did, we'd remove the thread straight away. But the truth is that, sadly, we at MNHQ can't know with 100% certainty that any poster is genuine, no matter who they are or how long they have been here. As frustrating as it is, we're not able to vouch for anyone here.

So we always ask everyone to remember that not everyone on the internet is who they say they are – and remind folk not to give more to another poster, either financially (in cash or gifts) or emotionally (in time or care and support) than they'd be prepared to lose if things went wrong.

Sorry to hijack your thread briefly there, OP – we really hope you get it all sorted soon. Flowers

HunterHearstHelmsley · 17/01/2019 16:45

Come on, she's messed up. She knows she has messed up. We all have at some point! If you're not used to have some money for luxuries it's easy to get carried away and overspend.

It's happened now. OP needs advise on how to pay it back not to be made to feel worse than she already is.

Original poster
namechanged707 · 17/01/2019 16:45

@AnyaMumsnet thank you. Definitely a genuine poster although right now I wish I wasn't to anyone who's reported thinking it's ingenuine!

OP posts:
waterplease · 17/01/2019 16:50

Why on earth did you spend it when you didn't know what it was? You'd been there not even a month, they're not going to give you a £600 bonus😂

Sounds like you have impulse problems with money to spend that amount by now.

If they want it back, you're screwed.
If it was an advance payment of next months wage, you're screwed.

Sugarhunnyicedtea · 17/01/2019 16:53

So, unless the law is different in the Isle of Man, your employer has the right to take back the overpayment from your next salary. It's not advised to do it and the recommendation would be to negotiate instalments, but they can take it all in one go.
Put a proposal for repayment together, phone HR or a senior manager and offer payments now, don't wait for your manager.
It's a mess but it's not going to get any easier if you leave it.

TulipsInbloom1 · 17/01/2019 16:54

The repayment will be more than the wage slip.

HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend · 17/01/2019 16:57

Have you posted about this before OP Confused

I’m not sure why your asking a bunch of strangers tbh, you need to speak to your employer and ask what the additional money was for!

M3lon · 17/01/2019 16:59

OP it isn't necessarily that people think you are lying at all! It can just be that people might be worried others would want to send you money and MNHQ wants to remind people not to give out money when they don't know who the poster really is etc.

SaturdayNext · 17/01/2019 17:13

HaudYerWheesht, OP has asked and has had an answer. RTFT.

penelopepig · 17/01/2019 17:48

Payroll manager here. I'd say this was almost definitely a processing error by them. If whoever was inputting the payroll numbers has been given the wrong information it's very easy to make a mistake and it's down to the person receiving the pay to bring it it up with them.
When they realise the mistake, it will more than likely be deducted from your next payslip so in short, yes you will be paid less next time. Bit reckless to have spent it.

StirFriedBadger · 17/01/2019 17:52

If you got paid on the 21st and spent at least some of it Christmas dinner and presents you didn't give them much opportunity to reply/rectify it.

Original poster
namechanged707 · 17/01/2019 17:54

@StirFriedBadger well they clearly weren't going to anyway as they've only realised the error once I'd rang today, not that that's relevant as I get your point.

OP posts:
ChrisjenAvasarala · 17/01/2019 17:55

Good point stirfried. Especially with it being Xmas, it's fairly obvious they could have been closed or closing so she wouldn't have got a reply before the new year anyway. It's basically been spent immediatly.

They should have replied when they opened in the new year, but even if they had, the money was gone by Xmas. I'd assumed at the beginning it had been spent during January, not before Xmas.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

Join Mumsnet Log In

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.

Swipe left for the next trending thread