Owed money by previous employer

[Sandy001]

I resigned from my job in November 2015. I was told by my line manager at the time that I would receive a full refund of monies I had paid for extra accessories on a company car which was on order at the time. This wouldn't normally be the case as I resigned, but I had informed my company that my reasons for leaving were due their restructure and the fact that they were removing the company car entitlement. I had a meeting with my line manager before leaving and she told me that I would receive the money back, it is now three months later and I'm still waiting. I have emailed both my line manager and the HR department, phoned the employee services dept and even logged a report with their ethics website. All I keep getting told is my line manager needs to sort it out, but she has since gone on maternity leave. The issue has now been escalated to her manager who will not reply to me! I'm aware now that it's nearly 3 months since I left. I want to take the issue further, do I raise a formal grievance with the company or do I go straight to the employee tribunal service? Thanks

[Kati]

Re: Owed money by previous employer

:bump: for [MENTION=19071]teaboy2[/MENTION] [MENTION=26290]mariefab[/MENTION] ??

[teaboy2]

Re: Owed money by previous employer

You need to send them a letter before action, advising them how much they owe you and why they owe it and what your line manager said (company representative). Advise them if payment is not received within 14 calender days, then you will have no option but to take legal action to reclaim the debt, that could result in the Company having a County Court Judgement issued against them!

Where money is owed to an employee, they can take the claim to county court. I don't think the employment tribunal would hear this, unless the terms regarding payment/refund of car accessories was in your contract or in the company handbook.

Though you did say, normally they would not refund this - Is there any particular reason why they would not refund this?! If there is contractual term stating they would not refund the cost of optional accessories for cars, then i would think such a term would be unfair, and them keeping the accessories that you paid for without refunding you would amount to theft in my book!

[Sandy001]

Re: Owed money by previous employer

Update: I have finally received a reply from the manager! It's only taken 10 e-mails, one complaint to their ethics website and 3 tweets! I sent an email advising that if payment is not received within 14 days I would take legal action. The manager has now finally replied telling me that she has attempted to get the payroll dept to make the payment and was even told by them at one point that the money had been paid into my account! Payroll are now saying they are looking into a 'possible overpayment' perhaps on my salary and until that is sorted they won't be making any payments. I admit I think think at the time of leaving that I was paid 2 weeks in advance and since I had only given 2 weeks notice instead of the required 4 whether I would get paid anything when I left. My final day was actually on payday and they paid me a full months money. I received another payslip the month after and to be honest it makes no sense to me at all, even my holiday entitlement figures were all wrong. The net total was shown as zero so I thought no more about it and the company have never mentioned it until I started to ask about the refund for this money I was promised. Can they still do this after 3 months? Is it worth me perhaps writing to my local mp for help as this has been going on for far too long now. My manager has said she will chase it up everyday and let me know once she has an answer.