Overpayment issue

[littlemissnaughty]

I recently started working for a very large public sector organisation on a part-time/zero-hours sort of basis. I filled in my time sheets for my first month and sent them off. I got overpaid (at the end of August) by quite a lot, so I phoned my manager and said, I have been overpaid, obviously you'll be wanting it back, let me know what to do about that.

Nothing happened. After about three weeks, Isaw my manager again and said, look, overpaid, no requests for the money back yet, just letting you know. And nothing happened again. THere was no pay due at the end of September anyway, but when I sent off the next set of timesheets at the start of this month, I included a letter saying: You overpaid me, do you want your money back or do you want to call it a really big advance and not actually pay me till about next May? Nothing happened. I heard nothing, no phone calls, emails or letters.

And then it was the day the next lot of pay would normally be due. And they have overpaid me by quite a lot *again*.
I don't quite know what to do. I don't even know exactly how much the overpayment is, except that it's quite a lot more than expected. I'm anxious about it because the rest of my financial set up is not great - debt management plan and getting housing benefit etc. I've spent some of the overpayment because I had a couple of financial emergencies and the money was there sitting in my bank account, but I am willing to repay every penny... if they would only tell me how much they want back and how to get it to them. Has anyoneelse been in this situation?

[vanman]

Re: Overpayment issue

I think you should open a saving account with easy access
Transfer all the overpayments to this account
Keep telling the employer you have been overpaid
If and when they ask for it back you may have clocked up some interest on it.

[Wombats]

Re: Overpayment issue

If it is a large public sector organisation, there will be a payroll sector. You need to contact them rather than just tell your manager. Have your payroll reference and payslips handy and work out what you believe to be the overpayment.

Although if this happened over a lengthy period of time, they would come to a repayment plan, given it is only two payments, I think they would reasonably expect the full amount repaid.

Don't delay in doing this. If you dip in this month as you did last time, it will get harder and harder to repay the money. You should easily be able to get hold of a number for payroll (or HR if you cannot get payroll direct) at work.