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Hello, im looking for some help / advice as an ex-employer if trying to collect money for over-paid wages 2 years ago.
I worked for my ex employer, Sky TV back in 2018 and during my employment I changed my hours from full time to part time.
Everything at Sky was done via your manager and a portal; I submitted a flexible working request, this was then accepted by my manager who put in a request to amend my contractual hours & pay. You could view your rota / hours via the online rota system and a few weeks my new part time hours were showing on my rota and my annual leave allowance had been adjusted. I assumed everything had been sorted.
However, when I was paid my first part time pay it was higher than I expected (but still less than the full time wage I had before) so I asked my manager why and he explained it was pro rated down etc. and he checked the system and confirmed that my hours were adjusted so if thats what I was paid it would be correct.
For the following 6 months I received the same pay each month. Then one month i checked my payslip and I had a £700 deduction. I immediately contacted my manager who said to call payroll. They advised me this was due to an overpayment of wages of over £3000 as I had still been being paid for more than my part time hours. Prior to this I had had no correspondence or information warning me, they simply just deducted my pay. I asked why no-one had told me and they said they had been in contact with my manager - quite useless to me as my manager had not passed on the messages!
They then said they would amend my pay if I set up a payment plan to pay back the overpayment. I couldn't afford to not have the money that month so I agreed, as I assumed if I had been wrongly paid then I must pay this back. My payment plan was agreed and they would deduct this each month from my pay.
I made a couple of payments on my payment plan but then left Sky and have been working elsewhere for 2 years. Today I have received a letter from Zinc Credit Management advising they are working on behalf of Sky to recoup the remaining money (£2,300).
From researching online I have come across a protection clause called 'promissory estoppel' whereby you must meet the following criteria for qualify when defending the overpayment of wages;
To address each point;
1. I was only informed of the overpayment via the one phone call I had to the payroll team. I have never received anything in writing confirming the amount owed until I received this Zinc letter.
2. My position has changed as I spent all the money at the time, in good faith, as I was led to believe this was my normal pay. I had no reason to question it when my system reflected my new hours, my rota reflected my hours, my annual leave entitlement reflected my new hours and my manager confirmed my pay was fine. I was also paid this for 6 months without being made aware this was wrong or that they wished to recoup the overpayment.
3. I was not at fault for the mistake, this was a payroll mistake.
So, can anyone help me on if I could feasibly fight this stating promissory estoppel? If so, would I be better to write directly to Sky and explain the above or do I contact Zinc? I understand that Zinc are just 'managing' the debt, they have not bought the debt so technically can I still communicate with Sky and not a the debt agency?
Or... am I best to ignore the letters in the hope it may go away?
Thank you in advance for any help & advice give.
I worked for my ex employer, Sky TV back in 2018 and during my employment I changed my hours from full time to part time.
Everything at Sky was done via your manager and a portal; I submitted a flexible working request, this was then accepted by my manager who put in a request to amend my contractual hours & pay. You could view your rota / hours via the online rota system and a few weeks my new part time hours were showing on my rota and my annual leave allowance had been adjusted. I assumed everything had been sorted.
However, when I was paid my first part time pay it was higher than I expected (but still less than the full time wage I had before) so I asked my manager why and he explained it was pro rated down etc. and he checked the system and confirmed that my hours were adjusted so if thats what I was paid it would be correct.
For the following 6 months I received the same pay each month. Then one month i checked my payslip and I had a £700 deduction. I immediately contacted my manager who said to call payroll. They advised me this was due to an overpayment of wages of over £3000 as I had still been being paid for more than my part time hours. Prior to this I had had no correspondence or information warning me, they simply just deducted my pay. I asked why no-one had told me and they said they had been in contact with my manager - quite useless to me as my manager had not passed on the messages!
They then said they would amend my pay if I set up a payment plan to pay back the overpayment. I couldn't afford to not have the money that month so I agreed, as I assumed if I had been wrongly paid then I must pay this back. My payment plan was agreed and they would deduct this each month from my pay.
I made a couple of payments on my payment plan but then left Sky and have been working elsewhere for 2 years. Today I have received a letter from Zinc Credit Management advising they are working on behalf of Sky to recoup the remaining money (£2,300).
From researching online I have come across a protection clause called 'promissory estoppel' whereby you must meet the following criteria for qualify when defending the overpayment of wages;
- That their employer made representations of fact that entitled them to believe that the sum if money overpaid was theirs; and
- That the employee has “changed their position” (by spending some or all of the money) and in doing so acted in good faith and without notice that their employer wished to recoup the overpayment; and
- That the employee was not primarily at fault for the mistake
To address each point;
1. I was only informed of the overpayment via the one phone call I had to the payroll team. I have never received anything in writing confirming the amount owed until I received this Zinc letter.
2. My position has changed as I spent all the money at the time, in good faith, as I was led to believe this was my normal pay. I had no reason to question it when my system reflected my new hours, my rota reflected my hours, my annual leave entitlement reflected my new hours and my manager confirmed my pay was fine. I was also paid this for 6 months without being made aware this was wrong or that they wished to recoup the overpayment.
3. I was not at fault for the mistake, this was a payroll mistake.
So, can anyone help me on if I could feasibly fight this stating promissory estoppel? If so, would I be better to write directly to Sky and explain the above or do I contact Zinc? I understand that Zinc are just 'managing' the debt, they have not bought the debt so technically can I still communicate with Sky and not a the debt agency?
Or... am I best to ignore the letters in the hope it may go away?
Thank you in advance for any help & advice give.
