Tim wrote:
>>> That's a little unfair, isn't it? Suppose you made a mistake by telling
>>> someone you'd pay them £X for doing something (although you
>>> meant £x), the other person does it & you pay them £X, then
>>> later you say "sorry, I only meant £x -- give me the extra back!"
>>> Would you expect them to happily pay you back, when you had
>>> initially told them you'd pay them the full £X for the service?
>>
> "Aidy" wrote
>> That's different as you have formed a contract
>> with that person to do the work for that amount.
>
> Yes, but didn't the letter from the OP's employer effectively *amend*
> their existing employment contract? That makes it very much the same...
No it didn't, or at least the OP didn't quite make clear what it was
to have been for. My impression was that it was not the case that all
future work was to receive a higher rate of pay, but that this was to
have been a one-off gratuity of some kind.
So there may well not be a *contractual* obligation, but nevertheless
if someone tells you you're to receive a "gift", and that gift is then
in fact given, it doesn't seem right for them subsequently to want to
retract it and say "oops, we actually meant the gift to go to someone
else". Even if there are two employees with the same name, it's not
the sort of mistake the company should expect to be able to get out of
unscathed.
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