Employer Realizes That They Overpaid A Worker $30K Over 3 Years And They Want Her To Pay It All Back
Here’s your reminder to check your pay stubs!
Izusek / CanvaPro Starting a new job can be stressful. There are a ton of moving parts, paperwork to sign and payroll information to sort out. It's easy for mistakes to be made in the shuffle, which was exactly the case for one woman whose employer missed a retirement benefit of around $500 in her first paycheck that was ultimately refunded in the next paycheck.
However, she and her husband didn’t notice when her refund stayed on her paycheck for weeks to come — and on every check for the next three years.
After the employer realized they overpaid this woman for over three years, they requested she reimburse the $30K.
Dave Ramsey, radio personality and financial guru, shared his advice after the woman's husband called in to reveal her employer was demanding the couple pay the entire amount back — almost $30,000 in total.
Her husband explained that he never realized that his wife was receiving the extra money in her paycheck each month. Mostly because they never reviewed her pay stubs, but also because of all the issues with her paycheck at the beginning. They didn’t realize her monthly income was inappropriate.
Ramsey seemed disappointed with the couple suggesting that while the employer made the initial mistake, the blame ultimately fell on the employee for not checking her paychecks.
The reality is, if you’re getting overpaid, employers have a right to be reimbursed for that money.
Despite the narrative of blame, the couple had to repay the money. Her employer gave the option of a lump sum or a repayment plan for the $30,000. Ramsey suggested they start tracking paystubs more vigilantly and repay the lump sum over a two-year repayment plan.
“I don’t know how much longer she’ll be working,” he said. “You don’t want to get into a situation where she doesn’t work there anymore, but she feels like she has to because this is hanging over her head.”
While it may seem absurd, it truly is the responsibility of the employee to review their pay stubs each pay period to check for errors otherwise a similar situation can occur. It might be easy to have full trust in your accounting department, but errors occur. You could be getting over or underpaid right now.
Surprisingly, the tendency for employers to accidentally overpay is common and many suggest ‘honesty is the best policy.’
One Reddit poster revealed a similar situation happened to him, which he realized after opening his bank account and feeling like he’d “hit the lottery” on payday.
Accidentally sending him a few thousand extra dollars with his typical paycheck, his employer had not noticed their error and this man wondered if he should just pocket the money. He admitted that his bills were piling up and that he could “really use the money.”
However, after doing a little bit of research, he decided to alert his employer of their mistake. To celebrate his honesty, they decided to let him keep around $800 of the money!
Turns out, honesty is the best policy, and checking your pay stubs can help to save you from years of stress and anxiety.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a news and entertainment writer at YourTango focusing on pop culture and human interest stories.