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Post by wallyagain on Mar 16, 2022 18:05:09 GMT
Updated in the thread, this is the gift that keeps on giving.
I work for the Canadian Federal Government and our fiasco of a pay system is the stuff of legends. Google Phoenix Pay system Canada (Australia had their own fiasco before us).
I had been overpayed and I know I need to pay it back, not anything I did. Not a problem, but not all at once.
However, I wasn’t given a payment plan option and they just started clawing it back, so my pay today was ZERO and could be for a couple of months. Needless to say, I’ve talked to my manager who is escalating this quickly.
Going on 6 years and this system is still a gong show.
Ugh. We’ll be okay, but this shouldn’t happen to anyone.
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Post by PolarGreen12 on Mar 16, 2022 18:10:00 GMT
Oh shit that's awful! How do they expect you to live with no income while they get this shit together? i hope your supervisor is able to do something to get it resolved differently.
I had that happen once, it was not a huge amount, like $200 extra on a paycheck. I caught it that day it was deposited and was like I'll give it to you right now in cash. But they can't do things that way. Luckily they deducted over the next 4 paychecks, so I just left it in my account like it didn't exist.
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pinklady
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,514 
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Post by pinklady on Mar 16, 2022 18:10:28 GMT
If you knew you were being overpaid, then you should have set that money aside so it was ready for payback and there was no impact to you. So your "zero pay" should be a problem. I'm not sure why you expect a payment plan.
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Post by littlemama on Mar 16, 2022 18:12:48 GMT
You have already received your pay for this in advance. If the zero net checks "could go on for months" then clearly it was a large enough amount that you knew it was wrong and should have set aside.
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Post by busy on Mar 16, 2022 18:25:14 GMT
If you knew you were being overpaid, then you should have set that money aside so it was ready for payback and there was no impact to you. So your "zero pay" should be a problem. I'm not sure why you expect a payment plan. She may not have known she was overpaid until it was too late to have set the money aside to payback ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just recently discovered that my new company made a mistake and never started deducting my healthcare premiums. I didn't notice because I expected my premiums to start being deducted at the same time as my 401(k) contributions. As expected, my net pay went down. It just should have gone down more. No one discovered the issue for six months. I don't have to pay it back because it was their error. Anyway, there are definitely circumstances where she just may not have been aware, not trying to take advantage. |
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Post by wallyagain on Mar 16, 2022 18:26:25 GMT
Wow, you guys are brutal. I didn’t know until a few weeks ago, when they notified my manager. Our pay system doesn’t really let you figure out if your pay is correct or not. Even the pay staff can’t tell you. It’s ridiculous, but nothing I can do. FYI, this goes back years.
This is not a me problem, our union has many, many grievances due to the pay system. There are pages on our union and department pages on what to do if issues occur, they are that common. This is a centralized department that handles over 300,000 pay files so it’s not like you can walk down the hall to payroll to discuss.
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iluvpink
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,280
Location: Michigan
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Post by iluvpink on Mar 16, 2022 18:32:30 GMT
I'm sorry, that sounds like a real hassle and stressful situation.
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Post by workingclassdog on Mar 16, 2022 18:51:34 GMT
Wow ya'll are brutal... geez....payroll stuff gets messed up.. and people just don't know.
I had that happen once to a paycheck.. I was making payments to my state and was late with one check and the next month they took it all out in one check. No warning either. My fault on this one.. but really one late check... I learned my lesson. Don't mess around..
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pinklady
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,514
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Post by pinklady on Mar 16, 2022 18:51:56 GMT
If you knew you were being overpaid, then you should have set that money aside so it was ready for payback and there was no impact to you. So your "zero pay" should be a problem. I'm not sure why you expect a payment plan. She may not have known she was overpaid until it was too late to have set the money aside to payback ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just recently discovered that my new company made a mistake and never started deducting my healthcare premiums. I didn't notice because I expected my premiums to start being deducted at the same time as my 401(k) contributions. As expected, my net pay went down. It just should have gone down more. No one discovered the issue for six months. I don't have to pay it back because it was their error. Anyway, there are definitely circumstances where she just may not have been aware, not trying to take advantage. Sorry but no one will ever convince me that they didn't know they were being over/under paid and it was someone else's fault. If you (general you) are not looking at your paystub that's your fault. It's really not that hard to validate...it may be time consuming but it's your pay so it's worth it. If someone was underpaid, they'd surly expect a lump sum payment so if they are overpaid they should expect a lump sum chargeback. |
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quiltz
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,696
Location: CANADA
Jun 29, 2014 16:13:28 GMT
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Post by quiltz on Mar 16, 2022 18:58:44 GMT
wallyagain This is a STEPHEN HARPER Government issue. Do not blame the current government because they were handed this payroll system. Should have never happened as this system was not properly vetted. I do understand that you are upset. Blame the CPC Party and bring this up to your local MP as there is now choosing a new CPC Leader.
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Post by malibou on Mar 16, 2022 19:05:42 GMT
Don't let the brutalizing scare you off.
Wow, that really is a shit show of a problem. I'm sorry you got caught in it. Even if you had realized it happened, I still wouldn't expect a claw back that would leave me with a zero balance check. Glad your manager is jumping on this.
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Post by wallyagain on Mar 16, 2022 19:27:29 GMT
wallyagain This is a STEPHEN HARPER Government issue. Do not blame the current government because they were handed this payroll system. Should have never happened as this system was not properly vetted. I do understand that you are upset. Blame the CPC Party and bring this up to your local MP as there is now choosing a new CPC Leader. Oh, believe me, I know. Along with the centralization of IT and all communications equipment. I could tell you stories that would make your hair curl, from a safety perspective. The sickening part are the execs that lied to the incoming government in 2015. And the horror stories continue to this day. |
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Post by wallyagain on Mar 16, 2022 19:33:20 GMT
Don't let the brutalizing scare you off. Wow, that really is a shit show of a problem. I'm sorry you got caught in it. Even if you had realized it happened, I still wouldn't expect a claw back that would leave me with a zero balance check. Glad your manager is jumping on this. Thanks, there is an audit going back to 2016 of all government pay files and there are so many clawbacks, that it’s news on our internal government department communication sites. The union has a whole section on how to negotiate the clawback letters and repayment plans. I was expecting a letter, when this happened. |
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Post by lucyg on Mar 16, 2022 19:47:30 GMT
I feel your pain.
Our old city police & fire retirement system (the newer people are all on CAL-PERS now) decided years in that it had been overpaying on pensions for holidays or something, I forget what exactly, and wanted their money back. They did do a paycheck reduction for several years, didn’t try to collect it all back at once, and they exempted us line-of-duty widows which was nice.
There’s a lot of squirrelly looking stuff on those pay stubs, and even the union leaders weren’t able to determine exactly how much we were supposed to be getting paid … or maybe I should say, they didn’t agree with the city. I think the people jumping on you about this need a slightly less rigid world view.
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Post by jeremysgirl on Mar 16, 2022 20:03:35 GMT
This is terrible. If they made a mistake it was their mistake. I can't imagine my employer making this kind of screw up and then thinking they were going to take it back in one chunk. Jeremy had this issue with his employer when he first started his job. They not only pay a base rate but then commission on sales and the rates are all different based on the number of years you've been with the company and your performance reviews. His paycheck is so hard to determine if they are paying him correctly because of how they figure this. Well as it turns out they paid him a higher commission rate than he was supposed to get and by the time they had noticed it, he had been overpaid by $3k. They deducted $75 a week until it was all paid back. That's how you handle something like this.
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Post by mom on Mar 16, 2022 20:12:12 GMT
I am so sorry. Even if you knew it was coming, to be hit all at once is a hard blow.
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Post by compeateropeator on Mar 16, 2022 20:13:19 GMT
She may not have known she was overpaid until it was too late to have set the money aside to payback ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just recently discovered that my new company made a mistake and never started deducting my healthcare premiums. I didn't notice because I expected my premiums to start being deducted at the same time as my 401(k) contributions. As expected, my net pay went down. It just should have gone down more. No one discovered the issue for six months. I don't have to pay it back because it was their error. Anyway, there are definitely circumstances where she just may not have been aware, not trying to take advantage. Sorry but no one will ever convince me that they didn't know they were being over/under paid and it was someone else's fault. If you (general you) are not looking at your paystub that's your fault. It's really not that hard to validate...it may be time consuming but it's your pay so it's worth it. If someone was underpaid, they'd surly expect a lump sum payment so if they are overpaid they should expect a lump sum chargeback. Well you would be wrong in a lot of cases. I couldn’t tell you if there was an error in my pay and certainly not one that went back years. I am sorry wallyagain! Totally stinks. My previous employer had something similar happen and it affected more than just a few people. They ended up doing it in incriminates or payments over time. Good luck. I hope you can get some relief. |
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bethany102399
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,521
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Post by bethany102399 on Mar 16, 2022 20:30:47 GMT
However, I wasn’t given a payment plan option and they just started clawing it back, so my pay today was ZERO and could be for a couple of months. ugh, I'm sorry. When I first started my job I was part time and had to depend on the department admin to enter my time. She would frequently screw it up resulting in short or totally missing paychecks. When I went to HR asking for training so I could do it myself they went to my manager and informed her I was "making trouble" my response was, no you're not paying me. I like what I do but it's also how I make my living. Of course we were hand to mouth back then, and I didn't have the luxury of walking away, I desperately needed the job and was (and still am) the sole provider of health insurance for us. I was so angry I could spit. |
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Post by cmpeter on Mar 16, 2022 20:36:01 GMT
I had that happen once when I worked for American Express. When I went from hourly to salaried. I still keep entering my hours in the tool we used. No one told me to stop and I was young and didn’t know better. The gal who then submitted my pay entered it as overtime. It was a couple pay cycles and about $2K before I noticed and then I alerted them. I was so fortunate they just said to keep it. Just one of the many reasons why I continued working for them for 20 years.
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Post by Basket1lady on Mar 16, 2022 20:42:37 GMT
My first real job was for the county of Riverside in California, investigating incorrect pay and fixing it. Evidently it had been going on for years and people owed tens of thousands of dollars. There was a problem with the health benefits amounts and people had been inputting the wrong codes for years. There were about a dozen different insurance plans and each plan had multiple codes for number of family members. It took me 6 months to deal with it all.
It was determined that people had to pay it back since it was taxpayer money. Those phone calls were rough to make. I wasn’t involved in the repayment negotiations, but I do know that it wasn’t taken in a lump sum unless the employee requested it. If money was owed to the employee, we did pay that in a lump sum.
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Post by busy on Mar 16, 2022 20:56:43 GMT
She may not have known she was overpaid until it was too late to have set the money aside to payback ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just recently discovered that my new company made a mistake and never started deducting my healthcare premiums. I didn't notice because I expected my premiums to start being deducted at the same time as my 401(k) contributions. As expected, my net pay went down. It just should have gone down more. No one discovered the issue for six months. I don't have to pay it back because it was their error. Anyway, there are definitely circumstances where she just may not have been aware, not trying to take advantage. Sorry but no one will ever convince me that they didn't know they were being over/under paid and it was someone else's fault. If you (general you) are not looking at your paystub that's your fault. It's really not that hard to validate...it may be time consuming but it's your pay so it's worth it. If someone was underpaid, they'd surly expect a lump sum payment so if they are overpaid they should expect a lump sum chargeback. Well, I totally disagree that only the employee has responsibility to verify their pay is accurate. The company is also responsible for payment being correct. And also, it's generally true that companies (or governments in this case) have considerably more assets that a typical employee, and I don't think it's unreasonable *at all* that if a company can't be bothered to process payroll correctly - either to the detriment or benefit of the employees - that they should more the more inconvenienced party in correcting it. So yes, they should lump sum pay if they underpaid an employee or set up repayment plans over time if they overpaid an employee. |
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Post by bc2ca on Mar 16, 2022 21:03:29 GMT
It was determined that people had to pay it back since it was taxpayer money. My first thought was a government entity shouldn't have the ability to write off overpayments and move on. I'm sorry you got caught in this wallyagain , and can believe for most people, they would be completely unaware of the overpayment. This article says the average overpayment totals under $5000. Over a 6 year period that wouldn't be more than $70/month or $35/pay period if paid twice a month. Did you get a letter about this? I'm surprised they notified your manager, but not you personally. |
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quiltz
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,696
Location: CANADA
Jun 29, 2014 16:13:28 GMT
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Post by quiltz on Mar 16, 2022 21:08:23 GMT
She may not have known she was overpaid until it was too late to have set the money aside to payback ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just recently discovered that my new company made a mistake and never started deducting my healthcare premiums. I didn't notice because I expected my premiums to start being deducted at the same time as my 401(k) contributions. As expected, my net pay went down. It just should have gone down more. No one discovered the issue for six months. I don't have to pay it back because it was their error. Anyway, there are definitely circumstances where she just may not have been aware, not trying to take advantage. Sorry but no one will ever convince me that they didn't know they were being over/under paid and it was someone else's fault. If you (general you) are not looking at your paystub that's your fault. It's really not that hard to validate...it may be time consuming but it's your pay so it's worth it. If someone was underpaid, they'd surly expect a lump sum payment so if they are overpaid they should expect a lump sum chargeback. Phoenix pay system From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search The Phoenix pay system is a payroll processing system for Canadian federal government employees, provided by IBM in June 2011 using PeopleSoft software, and run by Public Services and Procurement Canada. The Public Service Pay Centre is located in Miramichi, New Brunswick. It was first introduced in 2009 as part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative, intended to replace Canada's 40-year old system with a new, cost-saving "automated, off-the-shelf commercial system." By July 2018, Phoenix has caused pay problems to close to 80 percent of the federal government's 290,000 public servants through underpayments, over-payments, and non-payments.[1] The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, chaired by Senator Percy Mockler, investigated the Phoenix Pay system and submitted their report, "The Phoenix Pay Problem: Working Towards a Solution" on July 31, 2018, in which they called Phoenix a failure and an "international embarrassment".[1] Instead of saving $70 million a year as planned, the report said that the cost to taxpayers to fix Phoenix's problems could reach a total of $2.2 billion by 2023. |
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sassyangel
Drama Llama
Posts: 7,456
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Post by sassyangel on Mar 16, 2022 21:21:35 GMT
Wow, you guys are brutal. I didn’t know until a few weeks ago, when they notified my manager. Our pay system doesn’t really let you figure out if your pay is correct or not. Even the pay staff can’t tell you. It’s ridiculous, but nothing I can do. FYI, this goes back years. This is not a me problem, our union has many, many grievances due to the pay system. There are pages on our union and department pages on what to do if issues occur, they are that common. This is a centralized department that handles over 300,000 pay files so it’s not like you can walk down the hall to payroll to discuss. I can see how that would happen. Geez some harsh responses. My paycheck isn’t the same every week, so this could happen to me, and I wouldn’t always be aware, right away. *notes never to share anything like that on here if it happens to me* lol. |
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Post by workingclassdog on Mar 16, 2022 21:25:45 GMT
You should try to look at my husband's paycheck stub.. I don't even try. He is a truck driver and gets paid by the mile. BUT there are a lot of 'what if's' that go into that.
If his truck is broken down, that is another kind of pay.
If he is stuck in a storm and the highway is closed that is another pay.
If he is sitting and waiting for a delivery more that xxx amount of hours, that is once again another rate of pay.
IF his truck is broken down and needs to be towed and he has to be back to homebase, that is another whole ball of wax.
Oh if he is on home time, no pay. There is no vacation time or sick time. He gets a quarterly 'bonus' instead.
I don't even pretend how to figure his check out.
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sassyangel
Drama Llama
Posts: 7,456
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Post by sassyangel on Mar 16, 2022 21:31:56 GMT
I work for a company of 300,000 plus employees. I could see how with a company payroll that size, small weekly overpayments could go undetected for a bit. Although, I think it being their error you shouldn’t have to pay it back, if you had to, I wouldn’t expect to be hit with repayments all at once so that it consumed my entire check through, that’s just totally unreasonable.
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peabay
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,598
Jun 25, 2014 19:50:41 GMT
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Post by peabay on Mar 16, 2022 21:58:47 GMT
I'm amazed there's not a class action lawsuit here.
I'm sorry for what you're going through here - that's incredibly stressful.
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Post by littlemama on Mar 16, 2022 22:00:52 GMT
Wow, you guys are brutal. I didn’t know until a few weeks ago, when they notified my manager. Our pay system doesn’t really let you figure out if your pay is correct or not. Even the pay staff can’t tell you. It’s ridiculous, but nothing I can do. FYI, this goes back years. This is not a me problem, our union has many, many grievances due to the pay system. There are pages on our union and department pages on what to do if issues occur, they are that common. This is a centralized department that handles over 300,000 pay files so it’s not like you can walk down the hall to payroll to discuss. Well, now that you have provided all of the pertinent details, we can give more appropriate answers. Now that I know the entire story, that sucks. How would they not notice that their system was screwing up for that long? The issue with a payment plan option would be that people could leave and the govt would be out that money. Im not saying they dont deserve to be because that is ridiculous. |
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Post by wallyagain on Mar 16, 2022 22:18:37 GMT
This pay system was supposed to save 70 millions and has cost billions. Hopefully, this link works. Phoenix Pay |
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Post by wallyagain on Mar 16, 2022 22:33:06 GMT
As I haven’t received the letter yet, I have no idea how much they are clawing back. According to our dept pay liaison, the system overrode a hold on the pay clawback. Shitshow They offered an emergency payment, that I would have to pay back. Um, no thanks.  |
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