Overpayment of Student Assistance Fund

Padkir

Has anyone else who got the SAF got the email today about how they made an administrative error and wanted to get 50% of it back?:eek::mad:

Seems to me that it's their problem since it's their admin error which caused the problem, and they can't exactly demand it back, especially since it was about 6 weeks ago and lots of people would have spent it!

I emailed FLAC and am waiting for a reply! Anyone have any thoughts?

Croppy Bhoy

Was just chattin to someone about this.

On the one hand, the SAF is a goodwill gesture from the college. It is given to the students for nothing so morally speaking, the students shouldn't really have gone "ha they gave me too much money, suckers" and gone and spent it. That is assuming they knew they'd received too much money (50% is rather a lot, it was 400e wasnt it?).

Then again, we're talking about a government and University who rip off it's students at every turn, so f*** em. The people I know who got it have already spent it on rent and whatnot anyway.

What is the legal prescendent for this? I know if your bank screws up and somehow credits your account with a load of money, you're still not entitled to spend/withdraw it. I imagine it depends on whether you can prove that you spent the money without knowing it wasn't rightfully yours?

As someone who seems to constantly be inconvenienced by other people's incompetence, I would quite like to one day benefit from it like this

Spacedog

they aren't going to chase down the most poor and vulnerable and beat the cash out of them, there would be war. if you still have the money ans can spare some of it, give it back, if it's spent and you can't afford it, calmly say so and explain your situation if they come to you looking for it.

Freaky

Does anyone know if the college are able to take the money back out of your account without your permission? I recieved the email from them today, and still have some of the money in my account but thats all i have....scared that ther just gonna take it out n i'll hav no money n not finished college til august...any ideas what exactly they will do next??

Croppy Bhoy

Spacedog wrote: »

they aren't going to chase down the most poor and vulnerable and beat the cash out of them

You must be new to capitalist society :pac:

Freaky wrote: »

Does anyone know if the college are able to take the money back out of your account without your permission? I recieved the email from them today, and still have some of the money in my account but thats all i have....scared that ther just gonna take it out n i'll hav no money n not finished college til august...any ideas what exactly they will do next??

Nobody can take money out of your account without your permission (other than the bank itself.. that's another story...) but they could maybe reverse the transaction. Take the money out before they do

brianthebard

Croppy Bhoy wrote: »

Was just chattin to someone about this.

On the one hand, the SAF is a goodwill gesture from the college.

I'm not sure what you mean by this but its not the college's money or money that would be spent on something else if not for the SAF, its only for the SAF and its given to the unis by the government.

Croppy Bhoy

brianthebard wrote: »

I'm not sure what you mean by this but its not the college's money or money that would be spent on something else if not for the SAF, its only for the SAF and its given to the unis by the government.

Ah yes, I wasn't sure but I had a feeling that it was provided by the government. Either way the point stands that it's money given for nothing in return.

I take it the error was made by the government rather than by someone at NUI? Was the 50% extra given to students all over the country or just in Galway?

Ficheall

Any chance someone could paste the text of the email here? The matter doesn't affect me, but I am curious.

PomBear

Ficheall wrote: »

Any chance someone could paste the text of the email here? The matter doesn't affect me, but I am curious.

God forbid one day it could affect anyone of us.......

Disgusting move by a University that is fresh from the private jet debacle


Dear Students
Further to our email below, we will be emailing you all next week to advise you of how much each student owes and the mechanism by which students can repay the amount overpaid to you.
Apologies for the inconvenience.



Dear Student,

I refer to you application to the Student Assistance Fund. It is with great regret that I inform you that due to an administrative error students who were allocated funds under the General Expenses Category received a payment from the Fund that was approximately 50% greater than what it should have been. This has resulted in a major overspend on the Fund. We will be seeking to recover this overpayment and we will be in contact with you in due course notifying you of the specific amount overpaid and the arrangements for refund of the overpayment. If you have any queries contact
(took out names and contact details)

Yours Sincerely,
(took out names and contact details as I doubt the rules would allow it, it was sent out by Student services anyways)

Lockstep

Croppy Bhoy wrote: »

What is the legal prescendent for this? I know if your bank screws up and somehow credits your account with a load of money, you're still not entitled to spend/withdraw it. I imagine it depends on whether you can prove that you spent the money without knowing it wasn't rightfully yours?

Closest example I have in my personal life was pay I got from working as an army reservist. 2 years ago, we accidentally got paid €100 extra (we just assumed it was an extra gratuity), and a few months later, we got letters telling us about the error and asking us to return the money. Some of us did so but not enough so the army just took the €100 directly out of our accounts so those who'd already returned the money lost €200 without anything we could do about it.

Not a good precedent and I really hope this doesn't happen here.

Padkir

Lockstep wrote: »

Closest example I have in my personal life was pay I got from working as an army reservist. 2 years ago, we accidentally got paid €100 extra (we just assumed it was an extra gratuity), and a few months later, we got letters telling us about the error and asking us to return the money. Some of us did so but not enough so the army just took the €100 directly out of our accounts so those who'd already returned the money lost €200 without anything we could do about it.

Not a good precedent and I really hope this doesn't happen here.

I seriously doubt what they did was legal, you can't take money out like that without permission, and if they said they were simply reversing the transaction, I would say that this would have had to be done within a few days of the original transaction, not a month or 2 down the line.

Here's hopin anyway!!

Ficheall

Well if it's any consolation, if they paid you 50% more than they should have, they'll only be asking for 33% of what you were given, as opposed to 50%, I think...

Ficheall

http://www.su.nuigalway.ie/site/view/2558

reap-a-rat

It'll probably be the recipients of next year's SAF that will suffer really! They'll have to make that money back somehow! Anyway I didn't get it but I'm happy for anyone who did that they managed to screw the system (albeit unknowingly) out of some dosh !

Croppy Bhoy

I know they've withdrawn it now, but it's absolutely disgusting that some tosser in NUI even thought that they'd be able to to get away with this. It's clearly only because of a backlash from the students and/or SU that they've reconsidered.

Lockstep wrote: »

Closest example I have in my personal life was pay I got from working as an army reservist. 2 years ago, we accidentally got paid €100 extra (we just assumed it was an extra gratuity), and a few months later, we got letters telling us about the error and asking us to return the money. Some of us did so but not enough so the army just took the €100 directly out of our accounts so those who'd already returned the money lost €200 without anything we could do about it.

Not a good precedent and I really hope this doesn't happen here.

Meh, serves you right for enlisting, you're lucky thats all you had taken.

I remember being overpaid in a job actually. A month or so later I got a letter about it, they had even enclosed a Giro cheque allowing me to easily repay the outstanding amount, which was very kind of them. It went in the bin.

Lockstep

Croppy Bhoy wrote: »

Meh, serves you right for enlisting, you're lucky thats all you had taken.

Why, does the RDF normally siphon money from bank accounts or something?


AFAIK, employment law means that if you're overpaid, there's not really anything they can do if you won't return the money. For things like gratuity or the SAF it's not as clear cut. Luckily the issue with the university was resolved.

The Cool

So they have since said that they will not be looking for that money back. It sounds to me like some tosser made the mistake of doshing it out and then expecting that everyone would just hand it back, and then someone higher up told them to cop on, that they can't be at that.

reap-a-rat

Its funny you say that! Earlier today my boyfriend said that, he said if he was in a position of authority and his attention was brought to the two emails they sent, he would have replied with "Ah now, lads, come on!"

People can say what they like about the SU but they sorted it fairly nifty! Did they honestly think that the poor students were gonna give back free money?!

PomBear

reap-a-rat wrote: »

Its funny you say that! Earlier today my boyfriend said that, he said if he was in a position of authority and his attention was brought to the two emails they sent, he would have replied with "Ah now, lads, come on!"

People can say what they like about the SU but they sorted it fairly nifty! Did they honestly think that the poor students were gonna give back free money?!

Indeed they did but to be fair, the Student services hadn't a leg to stand on in demanding that money back.

bildo

How useful is a grant right at the end of the academic year anyway?
I don't see any wisdom in this, I have a few text books I really could have done with owning this year, great lot of good it does in feckin April

po0k

bildo wrote: »

How useful is a grant right at the end of the academic year anyway?
I don't see any wisdom in this, I have a few text books I really could have done with owning this year, great lot of good it does in feckin April

I believe it was issued some month ago?
Assuming everyone who applied for it actually *needs* it, I'm sure it's very useful. ESB prices rose and it was a cold winter. Things add up.

As for 'asking for it back', what's the issue really?
The error may only have been discovered recently, in which case there was probably an internal debate about what to do leading to a delay before the notice went out.
The wording of the notice could have been chosen differently.
People whinge and bitch about transparancy, but when the pendulum swings both ways suddenly it's an issue?
If they underpaid, there'd be holy war of course.