My little brother, lets call him A for now, came to me today and said his boss, call him B, came to him and said that he (B) had been paying him (A) 600 euro too much for 2 years long. Ofcourse B wants the money back but he is not sure yet how and will come back to A after talking with the money manager (I guess accountant). A does not want to pay 14.400 euro at once, and getting paid 600 less each month for 2 years will bring him bankrupt (though we could probably figure some things out).
My question is: What are A his rights? Does he have to pay the money back? Must it be all at once? All the two years? And what happens if he leaves the company right now? Is he even able to?
Some details about A and B and how this happened:
A started working for B almost 3 years ago (he was 16). 2 years ago some software of B its company, that made sure payments happen automatically, stopped. But the payments did not (idk how exactly this happened or worked). The idea was that B pre-paid A (and all other employees) 150 each week. And substracted in week 4 the 600 (4 weeks * 150) from the monthly wage. Because B it's company stopped the software something went wrong and did not substract this 600 for 2 years. A is the only employee this happened to, A says. The company falls within the Bouw & Infra CAO.
A works in the Netherlands, therefore I would like an answer about the rights in NL.
As reply to comment:
I dont know how much A has been spending. Though he told me he could technically pay it. So he has 15k. To be clear btw, A never knew he got paid too much, he really didn't. He does not check those things.
A should have been receiving his normal month wage each month minus the 600. Because the 600 is already paid each week within the month (4 / 600 = 150 a week paid). What he got is his normal monthly wage + the 600. They never substracted it.
"loan"? Sorry bad translation on my part, corrected it. It means wage/wages.
What happened on payslip: Normally what should happen is A his normal wage should be shown as pay-out but also -600 "pre-paid" should be shown. What actually was shown on the payslip was the normal wage without the -600 pre-paid. Making it look like a normal payslip.
How A and B in the end handled the situation: A and B agreed to each pay 1/3 of the money. So A pays back 1/3 of the money. B pays 2/3 and the accountant of B pays 3/3. I don't know why exactly the accountant pays 3/3.
In principe kan de werkgever het teveel betaalde loon terugvorderen omdat het onverschuldigd is betaald. Maar als de werknemer aannemelijk kan maken dat hij volstrekt niet wist dat de loonbetaling niet klopte dat kan de werkgever in redelijkheid niet het teveel betaalde loon van de werknemer terugvorderen
. Sorry it's in dutch. I tried google translate but that messes up the whole message. It's an old document tho, 2014.