Sacked and underpaid. Help. Feeling suicidal

Hi Robert

Firstly, please don't panic, this will get sorted out. If you are still feeling suicidal, go to your GP immediately and make sure you get some help. As other posters have said, you are a really positive voice on here, everyone loves your photos and your great stories :-)

I can easily see why this has sent you into a flat spin. I used to be a payroll manager and even I was looking at your payslip and scratching my head at first. I think I can (mostly) explain it for you now.

To keep this simple, we won't worry about the tax/NI etc side for the moment. Your pay date is the 16th of each month, and they fired you on the 29th August. This means that the last payment you would have had would have been on the 16th September, because you would be paid in arrears, on the payday of the month AFTER the month you did the work.

If you could see your payslip for September, it would have the £748.77 Basic Pay and the £405.02 SSP on it  on the payments side. This is what you would have received had you worked (or I am guessing been off sick) for the entire month. However, your job ended on the 29th August, so you were not due the entire month's money, just the portion of it for the days up to the 29th. The "recall" would suggest that the payroll department were only told that you were leaving AFTER they had submitted the payment run to send money to everyone's bank accounts. Once this has been sent, they can still stop individual payments, which is the "recall" that they mention. So they stopped/recalled the £896.34, then got their calculators out and worked out that the Pay in Lieu of Notice, plus the holiday pay due to you, less the relevant taxes, came to £515.88, which they paid to your bank account manually.

In other words, they have made sure that the amount you received in September was the correct amount, and that you received it in September as you should have done. Unfortunately, it looks like the payroll department also only found out you were leaving AFTER they had filled in your Universal Credit form, so they have put the whole month amount on it, not what you actually got.

At that point, the numbers in their payroll system would still be relating to the payment that you would have got for the entire month, so they need to correct it, and I'm afraid this is what this monstrosity is. 

On the payments side, the things with minuses against them are the amounts that you would have got if you'd been there the whole month, but didn't because your employment ended. So those are being taken away, and replaced with the amounts you actually should have had (the positive values), namely the Pay in Lieu and holiday pay.

Likewise on the deductions side, they are taking away the amount you DIDN'T HAVE (the £896.34) and putting in the amount you did get (£515.88). 

The sole purpose of this payslip is to get their figures straight in their payroll system and for the tax man, which is why the result is so horribly confusing for you.

Unfortunately you won't get a copy of the September payslip, because it represents the payment that was recalled, and is therefore a) not correct and b) not helpful to you, because it would actually show the payment (£896.34)  that you are trying to prove you didn't get!

What you need to do is provide DWP/ the Universal Credit people with the payslip that you scanned on to here. I would hope that they would be experiences in pay calculations anyway, given their job, but if not, someone from HMRC should be able to explain it to them. It certainly wouldn't hurt to send them copies of your bank statements too, to prove what you actually got paid.

I'll stay online while I work today, so if I haven't explained very well and you need to ask anything, you can post a message

Please try to stay positive, Robert, this can be sorted out

I suffer from severe anxiety issues.  And I worry about the knock on effects of these phantom payments.

• Council tax.  I received a letter telling me that my council tax benefit has been stopped for September onwards.  I visited their office last Thursday.  And they based their decision on the reported £896.34 payment.
• Prescription charges.  Two weeks ago I claimed a free prescription saying I was entitled because I'm back on Universal Credit AND my earnings are below the £435 threshold.  But if they report earnings of £527 for October ( although I receive zero).  Then I'm guilty of fraud.  And  I face a £100 fine.  Rising to £150. And then the county court if I don't pay.

Some more background. My ex employer is a former council department which was privatised through a management buyout three years ago.  And they still have their payroll and pensions done by the city council.  

And you are correct about the timing.  From last week's phonecall, they said that although I was fired on August 29th,  the payroll department were notified on the 10th September.  After the payrolls were set up.  And then my payments were blocked.

Could you perhaps go back to the Council Tax department and take your payslip with you to prove what you actually received? If the council payroll department produced the payslip, you could always ask the council tax folks to phone them to confirm what they actually paid. 

Hope you can get them to have a second look at it. If anxiety is an issue, is there someone who can go with you, to help you explain to these people what has happened?

My advice is only hand over copies of Original Documents such as your payslip, should it be damaged its lost.

My advice is only hand over copies of Original Documents such as your payslip, should it be damaged its lost.