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

I can't understand why or how you were making payments direct from a client's account. That's a hell of a risk to take.

Send the £600 to them immediately, don't make them have to ask you to do it!

@maureenfrombarnsley

Oh I feel for you, OP. Horrid feeling.

You mustn't feel bad or lose sleep. You're a human, not a robot. Mistakes happen. You've said it's very unlike you and I can believe it. It's because you ARE good at your job that's it's bothered you this much.

You've done what you can, now fingers crossed for a speedy resolution, it's easy to imagine the worst but in my experience these things tend to work out better than we fear!

She sounds shit at her job to me.

I'm not sure why people are querying how payment has been taken from my client. When you pay for goods you call and make payments over the phone, this is what happened here! I just took it for the incorrect amount

@CorianderQueen why the need for that? I never started aibu to debate whether I am or am on not shot at my job I wanted help on fixing the issue and to ask if my compensation is unreasonable.

Such a mean nasty thing to say

What kind of work do you do?

I can kind of understand paying the wrong person but how did it come about that the amount was so wrong?

@satnighttakeaway I keyed the amount incorrectly

@Lineofconcepcion

Stop worrying so much and why even say anything to the client? Just refund the client, talk to the merchant.

Because they’re going to notice!!!

Sorry, you're the person who took £600 from a client when you weren't meant to and sent it to a random. I've never known anyone make a mistake like that. I'm sure you'll fix it and we've all made mistakes but the third party may just keep it.

You took it for the wrong amount but how and why did you pay that wrong amount to someone else?

@CorianderQueen the third party won't it's an official company I'm 100% sure that would not happen

I think I've probably over explained the issue here guys - dong worry about the technicalities the point is the client is Temporarily out of pocket £600 let's just keep it simple.

Good job you're 100% because they could keep it. I'd understand the wrong amount or the wrong person... but both? Were you distracted?

I think the curious thing that is confusing people here is that you are paying someone else not your own company so you are acting as intermediary - as someone else said upthread in a financial institution that would require someone else to check and approve and potentially a mandate agreement

Not questioning you - just trying to explain why it's so confusing.

You should be able to recall - financial institutions would refund any overdraft charges if incurred so £50 is generous.

@CorianderQueen clearly

As I mentioned and I appreciate this is not an excuse at all so I'm not trying to shift responsibility but quite a few off sick so I am covering three people and probably rushing to get tasks done and it's done me no favours clearly

@CorianderQueen why on earth say something like that to a very clearly stressed OP?

People dont understand because the client owed you £500. All you had to do was pay yourself £500. I'm not really sure why the client isnt doing the payment themselves and why they've instead given you their debit card but anyway, you were meant to pay yourself £500 but instead you've called up some other company and paid them £1100 for no reason. Didnt the other company ask what you were paying for? And how could you accidentally key in 1100 instead of 500. It makes no sense.

So confusing OP. I’m an accountant and I’m sober (for now) and haven't a clue what’s going on. But I think OP implied initially that the client owed a third party £500. It now seems the client owed OP £500. But OP in taking the £500 payment from the client via merchant terminal took £1100 in error - which we can understand. But what we can’t understand was how the third party bank account became involved if she was trying to take a merchant terminal payment by phone from her client

@ShirleyPhallus because she's so blasé about two massive mistakes. I'd have been fired for that.

@WhereverIGoddamnLike I'm sure it sounds confusing but it's normal - the client appointed me so by regulation they actually CANNOT make the payment themselves.

I know it might sound odd but it isn't in the industry I work in it's how it works - client doesn't deal with merchant direct

[quote CorianderQueen]@ShirleyPhallus because she's so blasé about two massive mistakes. I'd have been fired for that. [/quote]
I don’t think she’s blasé at all. I think she sounds very anxious and stressed and is making even more stupid mistakes because of it.

I really hope you never make a mistake in your job and have someone tell you how shit you are. Or in parenthood, or as a partner, or in literally anything aspect of life. Really not nice.

@CorianderQueen blasé? I don't know what makes you think that,

I've explained how stressed I am and feel physically 🤢 about it and my anxiety is through the roof?

I think you just have read the wrong message and attached it to my. I am anything but blasé about it, thank you.

lemmonysnicket That's what I thought originally, but it turns out that the £500 is owed by the client to the OP, not to a third party (see her post at 19.28.02). Instead of debiting the client for £500 she debited the client £1100 and paid it to someone else.

I will wait for my payment, I'm not bothered about it I just want to fix this shit!

But they werent even dealing with a merchant and neither were you. You were meant to be paying yourself the £500. But you've somehow managed to call some random merchant who has nothing to do with it, and pay them an amount not even close to the correct one (and also not easily a miss type. It is totally different). Its utter incompetence.

I've just opened a glass of wine