Mistake at work - help please!

[nevereverplease]

I had a client who owes £500 for work carried out, instead I sent the money to the wrong place for £1100.

I made this mistake an hour ago so will speak to the merchant first thing but assuming I can't reverse it, will take days to refund back to the client.

I will explain all to the client tomorrow, process the refund ASAP and offer a gesture of goodwill of £50.

Is this reasonable? I guess I'm just looking for someone to say it'll be fine in the end although I think it won't 😬

Btw I'm self employed so job isn't on the line but I just feel terrible

@KarlKennedysDurianFruit tried calling but they're closed the payments department are until tomorrow so I cannot do anything f

@Minky37 I took payment over the phone from the client and keyed it into the payment system

I pride myself on never ever making errors

Well that’s just silly. Everyone makes mistakes . Holding yourself to an impossible standard is pointless

All you can do is get straight on it first thing then. Mistakes happen, you apologise and rectify it as soon as is physically possible

KarlKennedysDurianFruit

Recalls aren’t always guaranteed, it’s sometimes more like a request, depending on the method of payment the ‘request’ can be ignored or refused.

I'm not 'picking at your grammar', treacle, but if you can't see why it might be helpful to clarify whether a client owes you money (which is, after all, what you've written) or is owed money by you (which would seem to be the case, but means you've omitted a word and made a typo, which I thought a bit unlikely) then gawd help us. Your punctuation isn't helping, either, if you want to get right down to it.

I understand that you're stressed, but don't have a frigging pop at me.

@PoorMansPaulaRadcliffe sorry I apologise I did send you a second message to clarify

@MrsGrindah thanks you're right

Can you afford to reimburse the client from your business account?
Personally, I would inform the client ASAP in case they are planning an online spending spree tonight and their payment gets declined.
You're human - we all make mistakes but it's how you handle it once it becomes apparent which makes all the difference.
Tell /explain to the client before they discover this for themselves, apologise profusely and reassure them you will correct this error so that they are not left out of pocket.
Good luck.

Do you work in financial services? It may be a regulatory breach if so.

I don’t understand, you mean someone owed you £500 but instead you sent £1100 to someone completely different. I could understand one mistake ie sending to wrong person, but how did you get the amount so wrong too?

My aibu was is it reasonable to offer goodwill of £50? Or is this unreasonable?

Right. I've now seen your subsequent posts, and I accept that you're stressed. I was a bit caustic myself. Apologies. I hope you can sort it all out.

I appreciate I can't change it b it just trying to make it better, also to posters saying I should transfer the shortfall I think you're right. I will find out first thing from the merchant how long the refund takes and if more than a day or so then will send the client the money in the interim

What a confusing post. Client usually pays you not the other way round.

@Viviennemary I'm sorry it's so confusing apologies.

Ok it's because I'm stressed! Part of the issue is I'm covering for someone too that's off sick I'm doing the work of two people and it's stressing me out hence stupid mistakes

The long and short of it is - my customer has had an extra £600 come out of their bank account for money they do not owe. That's the bottom line

£50 is a fine for a gesture of goodwill.

If this error sends them into overdraft/bounces direct debits etc then you should of course cover any costs incurred but otherwise you explain the mistake, what you are doing to rectify it, and how long that will take.

As long as the client gets the correct money back, no problem.

Offering £50 is a good gesture but it probably won’t make them any less annoyed

@RunningFromInsanity thank you, and yes the £50 goodwill plus any costs incurred of course I will definitely offer that too

@Yoshinori I know

I think my anxiety has just got the better of me as I'm not used to making mistakes not in this capacity anyway.

Bottom line is I cannot fix or change it until tomorrow and it's out of my control now what's happened in the past cannot change I'll just have to sort it ASAP and hope for the best and offer the goodwill £50

Apologise straight away. Offer them the goodwill gesture. Sort it out in the morning. Pour yourself a glass of wine, ignore the unhelpful comments on MN and be kind to yourself. Mistakes happen. It's recoverable. You're doing your best.

. Could you just repeat the whole scenario again please so we know exactly what happened. So basically in error they have been overcharged by £600. Is that right. So your company has the money which will need to be refunded. I agree with refunding any extra costs incurred because of the overcharging error.

@alliejay81 thank you so much. That is very kind of you, I cannot face the client tonight. I will apologise in the morning. I can't do it today I'm exhausted.