What would you do if you got overpaid?

Nurses General Nursing

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The night of pay, most of the staff look up their paystubs online. I looked mine up last night and noticed that I was over paid by 1500 dollars. For a moment I daydreamed about what I could do with the extra money.:cheeky: Ofcourse, I never had any real intention of not notifying payroll.

I showed my co-workers and to my surprise many of them advised me to not say anything. In fact, only one agreed that I was doing the right thing.

I thought things like this would be a no brainer but apparently not.

Well, I went to pay roll this am and got it taken care of. The lady working in payroll thanked me for my honestly and said eventually they do found out and it would not have looked good if I didn't say anything.

So morale of the story.... if you ever get over paid fess up. Although I don't think there is anything wrong with having a few short moments to fantasize about having money.

I love that most nurses are so loyal to employers that would throw them under the bus in a hot second. I am a generally honest person but if I kept a pen or post it pad from work at my house I am not a thief AND I don't care that I have it. Would I have told payroll about the $1500? Absolutely....but only because they would have found out eventually, gone into my bank account and removed it and left me negative at some point and not cared one bit about it. And of course it would be a time when money was tight for some reason. I am very aware of who I am to my employer. No one. It's great to be honest and all but don't be fooled into thinking your place of business would automatically give you the same respect. I always have my eyes on them.

Nurses are so judgey with each other. Do oil rig workers sit around judging their colleagues for that extra $100 they kept? Doubtful. Only on a nursing forum would someone equate keeping extra money to diverting and selling controlled substances. Yeah...that's a logical conclusion to draw. Oy.

Has nothing to do with judging anyone or even one's career/employment. Some of us were simply brought up not to keep things that don't belong to us and or have learned that Karma is a *****.

Once decided to take a taxicab home from work and once inside and settled into the backseat found a shopping bag from Tiffany's (yes, that Tiffany's). Upon reaching home paid my fare and exited the cab taking the bag with me. After getting home and changed decided to open the bag. Inside was a set of rather valuable silver. I know how much it cost because the receipt was in the bag. Rang up Mother to ask what I should do; her advice was spot on and priceless "you know what you should do, call the people and have them come get that bag, why are you calling me with this nonsense?".

Next day at work rang up the person on the receipt and made arrangements for her to pick up the bag. Long story short it turned out she was an assistant for a very high profile person and was sent on a shopping errand for a gift. If I hadn't returned the bag she "lost" in the taxi her employer were going to dock the amount out her paycheck.

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My understanding was that legally an employer cannot hold that pay; they must cut you a paper check. Many employers aren't that forthcoming, though, and will try to get away with telling you to wait, because cutting a check costs them money.

I called and talked to them again, a different payroll lady, and she was much more understanding. They are going to give me my PTO on a paper check on the 26th. I still have to wait, but its better than waiting until July 5th! Yay!

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DoGood I would have done exactly what you did, I was brought up the same way. My point is that if the $1500 error had been made and the OP said nothing AND the employer never found out...I would not be sad for her employer. The haphazard personal assistant? Yes. The hospital conglomerate who views OP as employee number 347890? Nope. Not a tear.

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At work, I agree to pay it back. In other situations, where a big company lost an extra $50 on me for example, if it's potentially "not noticed" by me, I don't think it's immoral not to pay it back (necessarily). If it's a small business I definitely would give it back though (unless I have some reason to hate the owner maybe? heh).

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I don't think its fair that some posters are implying that people who've kept trifling amounts are amoral criminals. C'mon.

I once got a five dollar bill instead of a single back from a gas station. I didn't realize until I got home. Sorry, I'm not about to drive across town to return a five dollar bill. Not going to happen.

I also once got a extra $10 from an ATM. And, nope, I didn't return it. Not even sure how one does that. It wasn't an ATM that was affiliated with any bank as far as I could tell. Was I supposed to mail it to some company? Spend 45 minutes on the phone trying to get a hold of someone to find out how to have it deducted from my account?

Life isn't a Leave it to Beaver episode. Who has time to spend a huge chunk of their day over such an irrelevant amount of money.

Who has the time? Honest people make the time.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I love that most nurses are so loyal to employers that would throw them under the bus in a hot second. I am a generally honest person but if I kept a pen or post it pad from work at my house I am not a thief AND I don't care that I have it. Would I have told payroll about the $1500? Absolutely....but only because they would have found out eventually, gone into my bank account and removed it and left me negative at some point and not cared one bit about it. And of course it would be a time when money was tight for some reason. I am very aware of who I am to my employer. No one. It's great to be honest and all but don't be fooled into thinking your place of business would automatically give you the same respect. I always have my eyes on them.

Nurses are so judgey with each other. Do oil rig workers sit around judging their colleagues for that extra $100 they kept? Doubtful. Only on a nursing forum would someone equate keeping extra money to diverting and selling controlled substances. Yeah...that's a logical conclusion to draw. Oy.

If I were a worker on an oil rig, yeah, I would still feel the same way. Basic ethics should tell you not to keep that which isn't yours.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Between getting paid for being on call plus pay for call back time, my paycheck can actually vary by several hundred (once almost $1000) each pay. So, if I know that it's been a rough two weeks and I've put in a lot of overtime, I may not realize that I've gotten a few $100 extra. The formula for calculating overtime is incredibly complex (got an email once explaining it... I've had months to study it and still don't understand it), there's about 30 different lines on each pay stub (regular/shift diff evening/shift diff nights/holiday/on call/call back/call back to meet minimum/incentive/the list goes on) and I certainly don't take the time to go through and calculate each individual line. That's what the payroll department gets paid to do. If it's such a large amount that I notice, yeah, I'll talk to someone. If it's an amount that makes sense compared to the time I've put in for the two weeks, then there's nothing to notify anyone about.

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
Has nothing to do with judging anyone or even one's career/employment. Some of us were simply brought up not to keep things that don't belong to us and or have learned that Karma is a *****.

Once decided to take a taxicab home from work and once inside and settled into the backseat found a shopping bag from Tiffany's (yes, that Tiffany's). Upon reaching home paid my fare and exited the cab taking the bag with me. After getting home and changed decided to open the bag. Inside was a set of rather valuable silver. I know how much it cost because the receipt was in the bag. Rang up Mother to ask what I should do; her advice was spot on and priceless "you know what you should do, call the people and have them come get that bag, why are you calling me with this nonsense?".

Next day at work rang up the person on the receipt and made arrangements for her to pick up the bag. Long story short it turned out she was an assistant for a very high profile person and was sent on a shopping errand for a gift. If I hadn't returned the bag she "lost" in the taxi her employer were going to dock the amount out her paycheck.

Good on you! I get the feeling that a good portion of the people on this thread would think "Sweet! Finders keepers!" and take the bag home.

When I was about 10 or 11y I was at McDonalds with a friend and found a $20 bill under our table. In 1973, twenty bucks was a lot of money; still is to me. Anyway, I picked it up, took it to the manager and asked him to keep it in case someone came back and said they lost it. He told me to keep it since there would be no way to identify it. It didn't even occur to me to just pocket it.

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If I would have caught it, I would have let them know asap because they will turn around and deduct it from my paycheck in several lump sums at a later date.

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I still say it's incredibly easy not to even notice being overpaid. Even if my check were $200 overpaid, I would probably just assume I worked some overtime during that pay period and just forgot. Most nurses work so many snipets of overtime here and there, our checks fluctuate in amount from paycheck to paycheck.

Saying that an employer has the right to turn around and fire me for not "reporting" such an error in my favor is absurd. What right do they have to say "I should have noticed"? It's not my responsibility to go over my paystub every two weeks to make sure they didn't overpay.

Thank you!

I've never been overpaid on a paycheck but I have inadvertently been charged much less for things at the store and there is no way in hell I would say anything.

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Specializes in Transitional Nursing.

When I was 13 I found a $20 bill at Filenes. My mom made me turn it over to customer service and a month later I got to have it when no one claimed it.

I let my baby sister keep a 5 we found on the ground at the movies and I still feel guilty about it!

A few years ago I found a $20 bill in the ATM at Costco.....I gave it to customer service. All I could think was for all it know, it could be a single mothers last $20 and she'll be coming back for it.

I don't know, I just feel like if it's not mine, I shouldn't keep it. Even if that customer service attendant pocketed that 20....I tried to give it back.

I always give back change if I notice I've given too much.

When I was a cashier I double rang two orders. Didn't charge the first person, the second person had an astronomical bill. I would have been in big trouble, but the first person came back to pay for their groceries.

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Who has the time? Honest people make the time.

No, I'm not going to make time to drive across town to return a couple bucks change I got by mistake. If I notice as I get it, or before I get home, yes of course. But saying not driving 40 minutes to return a few bucks is the same as "stealing" is just childish.

I hate, hate, hate "moral absolutism" (google it, the stupidest philosophy ever). Nothing is so black and white, and what is right or wrong really can vary depending on the circumstances.

If Im walking down the street and find a box of Tiffanys diamond jewelry and there's no one around, yes, I would absolutely go out of my way to find a way to return it to the person who lost it. If I'm walking and find some dinky paste costume ring and there's no one near who could've dropped it, I would most likely keep walking or maybe (gasp) grab it and give it to my little niece.

The two scenarios are not the same. The ethics of any given situation are entirely relative to the circumstances surrounding said situations.

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