Can I and should I sue my ex employer?

[AskingForAnEnemy]

Used to work for a care company. Was not paid travel time. Was working a 40 hour week for 25 hours pay. I've read about people successfully suing over this but not sure if I still can as it's been 3 years since I left, but it bothers me that they took the piss out of me. My average hourly rate was about £4.20 an hour due to not getting paid for travelling, minimum wage at the time was £6.80.

Are you counting all travelling time or just travelling between appointments? Time you spent travelling from home to your first appointment does not count as working time for minimum wage calculations. Similarly time you spent travelling home from your last appointment does not count. If you returned home between appointments, those journeys also don't count. It is only the time spent travelling from one appointment to the next that is counted as working time for the minimum wage. So, for example, if you have two one-hour appointments, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and you drive home between appointments you have only worked for 2 hours. In that scenario none of your travelling time counts as working time. However, if you travelled straight from the first appointment to the second appointment, that journey would be part of your working time.

You are far too late to take this to an employment tribunal. However, as it is a pure wages claim, if you know exactly how much they owe you it may be possible to take this to the county court as a small claim. Unpaid wages (e.g. paying below NMW) is a breach of contract giving you up to 6 years to take action. You should first contact your ex-employer, telling them how much they owe you and asking them to pay. If they don't you should try a letter before action, giving them a deadline to pay and saying that you will take legal action if they don't pay up. If they still refuse to pay you can start a claim.

If you want to go down this route it may be a good idea to get advice from the CAB, a law centre or your trade union (if you are in one). It is also worth checking your home insurance to see if you have legal cover for this kind of situation.

Yes I am just counting time between calls for example after my first call i have 15 mins travel time to the next, then 15 mins travel to the one after that and so on so in a 8 hour shift i was spending at least 2 hours travelling meaning I was only getting paid for 6 hours, sometimes even less depending on which run I was doing.

I have no idea how much they would owe me but I was full time getting paid part time wages for just shy of 11 months

If you want to take legal action you will need to work out how much they owe you. If you don't have the information you need to work it out you could try making a subject access request to your ex-employer asking for your payroll records.