legal stance on wage negligence?

P

peterd

Guest
If a person is employed by a company for a short period of time, but after he or she has left the particualar company they continue to pay them a small wage in to there bank account on a weekly basis.This goes on for a period of a year and a half. The ex-employee calls the company during this time and tries to bring this to there attention but they continue to lodge money into the persons bank account. The ex-employee contacts the Revenue commissioners for a list of there employers for the last 3 years, But the company that has been paying money into there account does no show up on the Revenue Commissioners files. So the Revenue Commissioners has no knowledge what so ever of this person ever working for the Company in question or recieving any P.A.Y.E
So the Company in question then Contacts the ex-employee after a year and a half of overseeing there mistake to high light there error and requests the funds to be returned.
Obviously the ex-employee wouldn't be in this situation if it wasn't for there incompetence.
Who is in the right in this situation? The ex-employee is willing to take have the responsibility and return half the money. Is this legal?
All information would be grateful.

Regards
Peter
 
You have two different issues there. The fact that Revenue don't know about the employees is worrying but probably doesn't impact directly on whether you should return the money.

By and large if you are given money that you're not entitled to then there's a good chance the person who gave it to you can claim it back. For example people who incorrectly have money credited to their accounts due to banking errors.

Posession being 9/10ths of the law usually means that the 1/10th that would entitle someone to recover something may be so expensive and troublesome and risky to pursue that they may cut a deal.

If you got paid without revenue knowing you worked for this company then you may have bigger issues. The employer trying to recover money wouldn't be my primary concern right now.

Was PAYE and PRSI deducted from your pay and not paid to revenue?

-Rd
 
Call me cynical but I can not believe that you tried too hard to get your previous employer to stop paying you after you left.

A letter to the payroll/HR department or managing director would have nipped this in the bud earlier.

S
 
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