What would you do if you got overpaid?

[BSNbeauty]

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.

[windsurfer8, BSN, RN]

BE HONEST.

[robin1717]

I was overpaid by over $3000, so basically I realized it. I'm just waiting to here back from payroll.

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

I don't pay any attention to what my paycheck says. I have always assumed it's correct, because that checking-up is way down on my list of priorities. If my check was incorrect, I'd never know...

[imintrouble, BSN, RN]

I'd give it back.

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

Of course you needed to notify payroll. Anything else is dishonest.

No one's job is worth $1500.

Apparently , you are working with some not so bright people if they think it won't eventually be discovered.

[sharpeimom]

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.

I'm sorry but it IS our responsibility to be sure your pay check or automatic deposit is the correct amount.

YES, the employer CAN sue the employee for the return of the overage amount in the employee's checking account. Once .10c of the incorrect amount hits your account you have technically committed embezzlement IF you don't notify your employer's payroll. Keeping it in your account, intending to return it on Monday, can count as embezzlement too.

Absurd? Too much trouble to return? Being honest isn't worth it for $5.00? Too much trouble to return $5.00?

I hardly think so. It's called basic honesty and morally and ethically what is what an honest, moral, ethical person would do.

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I'd keel over and twitch for a while. Then call HR.

[RainMom]

I'd keel over and twitch for a while...

:D:D

[ceccia]

The hospital conglomerate who views OP as employee number 347890? Nope.

24601?

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

I don't double check every pay check for accuracy. Those fellow employees who do are always finding discrepancies in the employee's favor.

I described earlier but feel it bears repeating. I did call HR once when the wrongly paid me twice for the same pay period, once by direct deposit & once by paper check. HR never would return the several messages I left them. So I simply didn't deposit the paper check; problem solved right?

Later that year, as it was explained to me, the hospital was clearing their books and when they discovered I had an undeposited check, they proceeded to direct deposit this check to my account. I made the obligatory call to HR and left a message (you never get to talk to a real person when you call). They never got back to me. I quit trying that point. Like to see them try to punish me for that!t666666666666666666666666

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

When I got my most recent tuition reimbursement check, I noticed that the amount for the year was greater than the allowance for the year. My first thought was "Did they raise the limits?" because that would have been a big help- the tuition reimbursement was nowhere near the cost of school. Of course, that wasn't the case, and I was told by the person I contacted that they would have found it when the next report was run. However, they were very accommodating in how it was repaid- I was allowed to split the amount in half and have it deducted over the next two paychecks rather than having to write a check (which my bank charges me for more than 3 per month) and have to run out to a distant site to the payroll offices (I don't trust interoffice mail for something that important).

As for whether I'd notice in my normal paycheck whether it's off or not would be nearly impossible. I never work the same number of hours in a pay period- I work anywhere from 40 to 77-current record that I would prefer not to break (yes, I've had a paycheck where I was paid for my standard 40 hours plus an additional 37 hours for being on call on all the days the surgeons ran cases until all hours of the night or the upstanding citizens were shooting at each other and needing emergency surgery and I had to stay until all of those surgeries were done or had the phone ring in the middle of the night telling me to get my butt in). Without any consistency in the amount, how am I even to know if it's off without taking the time to sit down, understand the complicated formulas used for calculating anything other than first shift pay (seriously, it's this really long formula that payroll once tried to explain to me- I still don't understand it) and calculate it out? That's what payroll is paid to do.

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

As for whether I'd notice in my normal paycheck whether it's off or not would be nearly impossible. I never work the same number of hours in a pay period. . .Without any consistency in the amount, how am I even to know if it's off without taking the time to sit down, understand the complicated formulas used for calculating anything other than first shift pay (seriously, it's this really long formula that payroll once tried to explain to me- I still don't understand it) and calculate it out? That's what payroll is paid to do.

This!! I would be shocked to ever get two pay checks that were exactly the same. There's quite a bit of variation based on how many weekend, holiday, night, evening hours are included. If my paycheck is in a $400-600 range, I don't give it a second look.