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. 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.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
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. 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.
You've got some co-workers dumber than doornails then. An overpayment is going to be found, and then if you're asked why you didn't say something right away...sigh.
At my first job there was a big error on my paycheck due to my deductions being entered incorrectly ("99" instead of "00.") I had to pay back that extra, plus the taxes that were owed on that money because I had all those deductions.
I wouldn't want to work with people who would advise me to cheat. It would make me wonder what else they'd lie about on the job.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
Once American Express credited my acct with a BIG number. I reported it - I suspected some other customer didn't get his credit and would be calling about that.
Another VISA/bank card credited me with some $300. I let it ride because I knew they'd catch it eventually. And they did, some 6 months or so later. They did mail me a letter to explain.
Now I DID NOT give back the extra $10 that I once got from a MAC machine. I want one to give me a $20 bill. Not thousands of dollars - I just want a $20 once.
My sisters go to a branch bank office Mac machine outside their neighborhood that has given them an extra $20 a couple of times. Never worked for me when I tried.
Why wouldn't you give back the extra $10.00? The amount is immaterial; taking what isn't yours is stealing.
It's happened to me, and I notified payroll. They deducted it from the next check. Its not worth keeping it, not only is it dishonest but eventually it will catch up to you and they will deduct it when you aren't expecting it.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
This happens more than one can imagine. I get the impression that few powers that be "get" that most of us live paycheck to paycheck. And when one is talking about getting paid every 2 weeks, it is like a lifetime.
It is times like this that people should take advantage of local food pantry. Or the car payment--sometimes they let you put it off for 2 weeks. I have been there, and it is not a wonderful place to be to say the least. I also do a follow up email to whomever "does" my time to remind them that they are to include PTO. Which one shouldn't have to do, but unfortunetly sometimes you have to.
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.
Good choice. You are absolutely right, eventually that mistake would be found. It would be easy enough to say "sorry I didn't notice the over payment" if it was a few dollars, but kind of hard to try that excuse for that much! Not only would keeping it be wrong, not reporting it could have potentially lost you your job.
This happened to me. Payroll made a mistake and kept paying me after I had resigned a position and moved on. I received a check but cashed it, thinking that it must be because their pay periods seemed to be so far behind. And then another check came, and I knew something was up. They never took me out of the system!! I paid them back the check they cashed. I would have been in real deep if it had caught up to me. Always do the right thing! Nursing is a high integrity job.
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.
ALWAYS return the money or the check to be reissued. If you do not and they discover the error later and you plea ignorance you appear to either be a thief or stupid. When you do return the money they may not understand it but it plants a HUGE message in their heads about your honesty and one that the will never forget....
Ofcourse, I never had any real intention of not notifying payroll. 
OCNRN63, RN
5,979 Posts
You've got some co-workers dumber than doornails then. An overpayment is going to be found, and then if you're asked why you didn't say something right away...sigh.
At my first job there was a big error on my paycheck due to my deductions being entered incorrectly ("99" instead of "00.") I had to pay back that extra, plus the taxes that were owed on that money because I had all those deductions.
I wouldn't want to work with people who would advise me to cheat. It would make me wonder what else they'd lie about on the job.