Been paid twice this month by error

[babylone]

I have changed jobs at the end of january.
i moved from one NHS trust to another different one.
i received my pay from my current workplace two days ago.
this morning i received exactly the same pay from my previous job!

a part of me wants to let them know they’ve made a mistake and return my (small) salary (AINBU)
another part of me think that perhaps no-one will notice and perhaps i could keep it???? (AIBU)

im thinking if they dont notice this month, they will notice next month and at some pount i will have to return it anyway….

I cannot believe you thought about keeping it. Untrustworthy.

Did you not get paid in arrears from your other job? So are owed a month on leaving?

Your old manager will need to be informed too as they have likely not terminated you correctly. Put the money in a savings account to earn a little interest on it until you have to pay it back as they usually take some time to organise that.

Some people at my work were overpaid monthly for an extra responsibility. Work realised about a year later and had to return it all. If you did keep it (which you shouldn’t) you’d need to be ready to return it for years to come. I couldn’t cope with the stress of that knowledge.

You need to notify whoever deals with payroll. As tempting as it might be, don't keep the money. You aren't stupid, so therefore can hardly use the excuse 'I didn't notice'. Of course you did/have, most people would know if they suddenly received double, their normal salary!!

Keeping the money, could count as gross misconduct, and they could legitimately dismiss you from your job, for dishonesty.

You are legally obliged to pay the overpayment back and if you speak to the union rep they’ll surely agree. Quite apart from receiving money that you’re not entitled to have, your tax and NI will be incorrect.

Just be aware even if you flag the over payment the ‘standard NHS’ letter you get to follow it up is very harsh. (Talks of fraud and legal action to recover it) It’s hard not to take it personally when you have immediately notified them about it but try to let it wash over you!

The OP has already emailed them. No need for hundreds of posts telling her she has to pay it back.

Erm, that’s fraud. They will notice. It’s not worth the possible stress and ramifications. Just let them know ASAP that you have been paid twice.

At least i got 30 minutes of a dream wardrobe refresh out of it!!!

Don’t be ridiculous. It is morally wrong to keep money that doesn’t belong to you. Your employer will notice and you will be in big trouble which is what you deserve.

I suspect they will have sent a leavers form that missed payroll deadline so it would be requested back next month maybe

It's not fraud. There was no deliberate financial rule breaking. It was an error by a third party which benefitted the op. I'd just do what I did. Say nothing, just don't spend it for a few months in case they claim it back. If they ask, you just say you thought it was holiday pay or something.

This happened to me about 12 years ago. I notified payroll straight away. They were clearly manually entering timesheet data and must have accidentally entered my payroll number for someone else's timesheet, the woman I spoke to said they would not have been able to chase the error if I hadn't notified them. Oh well, my conscience was clear.

Well done for emailing them. It's tempting to keep schtum but it looks bad on you and your judgement! I recently had to tell someone I contract to that they had input my rate as 9 times more than it should be - I had the 5 minutes spending it in my head and then did the right thing and emailed them.

Of course you have to tell them and return it. If nothing else, they absolutely will notice at some point (audits, if not before) and then what happens if you didn't inform them?

A similar thing happened to me a while ago when I changed jobs. You absolutely must pay it back. If you don’t, you will have it hanging over you and when they find out, they will know you deliberately kept quiet about it. Just pay it back today and be done with it.

Edited to say I just saw you’ve posted that you’ve emailed them. Well done.

I feel ya!

Good on you.

Here we have the NHS in perpetual financial crisis, operations being cancelled and you as an NHS worker decide to steal money because no matter what you think, to keep it is stealing. Appalled you have even considered keeping it.

Jesus christ. Stop it.

If your payroll department is anything like mine they won’t notice, or at least not for a while. I’ll keep schtum.

But that will speak volumes about the OP to her employer. It's not worth the risk.

Lol I can understand the temptation but you've done the right thing emailing them, there's no way you could have kept it - it would be tantamount to theft

Things may have moved on from that time.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg59579q16o

I was once paid by an agency where I was doing ad hoc work £15000 instead of £1500. Was an error but I let them know ASAP where they were panicking but I had to send the money back which they did compensate me for as I had to go into the bank to sort it out.