Imagine you are expecting a pay-rise at work, and then you open your wage slip and find that instead of the £3.5k raise you were expecting you got an increase of £12.5k per year.
This is obviously a mistake, and one that should be easily noticed at the next salary review...
Would you own up ASAP? I think the key phrase here is "plausible deniability" - if it transpired you knew of the mistake and didn't say anything then that would probably be construed as gross misconduct.
Not quite sure if I could pull off the plausible deniability thing... my boss certainly knows I am not hanging on for pay-day and accounting for every penny, and I could stop opening my payslips from now on so if challenged I could show them unopened "except for the one I opened last night to verify I was getting too much". Probably worth the risk - if I was suddenly asked to leave they'd be fucked anyway so the worst they could really do is get me to pay it back.
6 comments:
Hm. I'm really paranoid so I might bring up the error, especially as I'm in no way short on funds. I'd think it was someone testing my honesty and when I don't fess up they show up with a pink slip.
However, I also have direct deposit and don't get paper slips so it would be very easy for me to 'overlook' such a mistake.
At my company, they would make me pay it back, and surely would eventually find out... I would be too tempted to spend it and I'd be screwed once I found out...If it was a different company where I had less time invested and that may or may not notice, then I would let it ride :)
next pay review is october 2012 (missing the one this oct due to it being soon after the pay-rise from the new job role). this means it is likely to only be found out then. it is tempting to wait... i may want to move jobs before then, in which case i'd kick myself if i owned up now.
haven - the actual money is deposited into my account but we still get a wage slip as a paper record of the breakdown: gross wage, income tax, national insurance, and pension are detailed leading to the bottom line net amount.
Hm. The consequences go deeper than getting in trouble there. It could trickle down into your future employments, or even get you blacklisted as a crook, even if it is their error. Not to mention, the wage increase could put you in a new tax bracket, and if they don't find out this review, they may find out for the next, force you to pay them back, after being taxed on the damn thing...
Instead of reporting it as an error, I would play it off like a happy surprise. Thank the person responsible for your raise vehemently. Act happy go lucky. They will probably get suspicious and look into it, that or they won't and then realize the blunder later, kicking themselves for not realizing it sooner, especially when you gave them the nod so to say. That might actually work, it might not. Worth a shot? Maybe.
i like your idea TNP, though as all pay stuff is accompanied with a page of the breakdown which you both sign i don't think i can claim i thought it could be an extra raise. i either feign ignorance of it being more than advertised, or fess up.
i will definitely wait until the next pay-check before deciding - if the next one is normal then there's no need for me to point it out. unlikely, but worth waiting to see.
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