I'm in a bit of a weird situation. Bear with me if this is long-winded, I don't want to drip feed.
In December, my work took me all over the country. Different organisations were paying my travel on different days including my employer paying for a couple of the trips.
I booked all my own travel in advance then claimed back from each of the organisations which is pretty standard practice.
However, on one of the days (let's say 12th December) my trains were paid for by an organisation which isn't my employer (let's call them Company A). My meeting at Company A was re-arranged several times and only confirmed for December 12th a couple of days beforehand which meant me cancelling another meeting that my employer would've paid my travel for.
Anyway, following my meeting at Company A, I submitted my claims to them. A couple of days later I also submitted a claim for 12th December to my employer mistakenly thinking they'd be the ones paying for my travel (because of the confusion around dates, the cancelled meeting and the general chaos of December overall).
Work paid the expenses for December 12th but then flagged up that they shouldn't have paid it because it was Company A's responsibility to pay it.
I received an email last week very curtly asking me to explain why I'd claimed for 12th December travel when Company A should've paid. I emailed back and apologised profusely explaining what had happened and offering to pay back the expenses they'd paid me. I owned up and said it was my fault and it wouldn't happen again (and has never happened before).
I then received a follow-up email basically asking me the same question. I emailed back the same answer and called the person in HR/accounts to apologise and clarify. I was told it'd have to be passed on to be investigated.
Yesterday I got called into a meeting about it where, once again, I explained what'd happened and offered to pay it back. They said they couldn't accept the money back from me. I offered for them to deduct it from my next paycheck which they also said they couldn't do.
The HR/accounts person there more or less explicitly accused me of fraud. I understood her point completely but I queried why on earth they'd actually reimbursed the expenses then- why didn't they spot the fraud before they reimbursed me?!
Anyway, it's not a disciplinary matter so it's basically been dropped apart from my expenses being "closely monitored". That's fine.
My weird situation is that I feel as though I've done all I can to remedy the mistake but I'm still left with this extra money obtained through "fraud". By keeping this money (I have no choice about this, they won't take it back!) I feel like I'm complicit/admitting fraud.
Have I done everything I can here? I know the matter's being dropped so I shouldn't give it headspace any further but it doesn't sit well and I want to make sure I've done all I can.
Sorry for the huge post!!