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Co-op worker was paid £1.4m by mistake

5:55pm Tuesday 15th December 2009 in


BUNGLING supermarket bosses mistakenly paid a worker more than £1m in wages.

Shocked Co-op employee Stephen Foster first discovered the blunder when his pay slip showed the firm had paid him £1.4m.

He was even more surprised to find that when he checked his account at a cash machine, his balance had rocketed to more than £800,000.

But honest Mr Foster, who works at the Co-op's regional distribution centre, in Birtley, Gateshead, contacted his bosses to alert them to the mistake.

He did not touch a penny and within hours the money had been repaid. Mr Foster's honesty has been rewarded with a crate of Budweiser beer.

Mr Foster, who lives in Gateshead, is unable to speak about the biggest pay day of his life, because of restrictions in his contract with the Co-op.

But a spokesman for the Co-operative said: "Due to a error in our wages department earlier this month, Stephen Foster, an employee at our Birtley regional distribution centre, received a monthly salary payment of £1.4 million.

"After deductions, around £800,000 was paid into his bank account.

"This was somewhat higher than he would normally expect but thanks to his honesty and that of his girlfriend, who first spotted the error, he immediately informed us of the mistake and the money was back with us within 12 hours of it being paid to him.

"We were surprised and concerned about our mistake but not by Stephen's exemplary behaviour, which is typical of him.

"Coming as it does just before Christmas, it's the kind of act that renews your faith in human nature."

Comments(11)

cj-dog says...
11:39pm Tue 15 Dec 09

He is paid more than £1,400,000 and he doesn't emigrate immediately but tells his bosses of their error.
He's a better man than me!

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colinburns says...
8:53am Wed 16 Dec 09

cj-dog wrote:
He is paid more than £1,400,000 and he doesn't emigrate immediately but tells his bosses of their error. He's a better man than me!
Most people are!

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last of the mandms says...
10:25am Wed 16 Dec 09

generous reward, that ought to ensure the next person it happens to will be equally as honest!! as a side thought I think over-payments in wage packets were not legally recoverable, if thats true then a case of beer (cost to supermarket £5.00?) seems parsimonious in the extreme.

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Ian James says...
11:19am Wed 16 Dec 09

1. 4 million pounds was paid into this lads bank account. It must have been the co-ops annual profit coz nobody i know shops at a co-op nowadays. The tight, bastards its no wonder nobody shops there no more and theres none of their shops about, coz to give an employee a case of beer as a reward for not spending its yearly profit sounds like the true scrooges that they are. I know what I woud have done, you would' nt have seen me until I was ready to hand meself in after fleeing abroad to the sun for a few years and doing a Ronnie Biggs and having a great time and bangin loads of quiff and drinkin loads of booze. After that I would be ready to do me time and in a British nick and be out after 3 years and sell me story to the papers and make a million and live happily ever after, and go and shop at a co-op. lol.

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Dean M says...
12:58pm Wed 16 Dec 09

colinburns wrote:
cj-dog wrote: He is paid more than £1,400,000 and he doesn't emigrate immediately but tells his bosses of their error. He's a better man than me!
Most people are!
Oooooo...bit..ch...

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cj-dog says...
4:00pm Wed 16 Dec 09

Yet again colinburns offers only his usual vitriolic sniping that is borne from his feeble humourless existence and his intellectual impoverishment.

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always right says...
6:00pm Wed 16 Dec 09

cj-dog wrote:
Yet again colinburns offers only his usual vitriolic sniping that is borne from his feeble humourless existence and his intellectual impoverishment.
colinburns is a waste of oxygen,,a chav and nothing else. it must have taken him 3 hours to put that short statement together.

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Dean M says...
6:13pm Wed 16 Dec 09

Yes, I think I am too.
.
But what's 'bangin loads of quiff' - is that a gay Teddy Boy fetish?

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Dean M says...
10:19am Thu 17 Dec 09

'Yes, I think I am too' - with Ian James that is.

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Paul10101 says...
11:30am Thu 17 Dec 09

http://www.facebook.
com/home.php?ref=hom
e#/group.php?v=wall&
ref=nf&gid=206872801
241

Co-op decided to reward Stephen Foster (employee who got paid £1,000,000 by accident with a crate of beer, which they can get on wholesale!

We say he deserves more!

Support the £5,000 from Co-op for Stephen Foster group, to help him cope with trauma of having almost a million pounds in his account and then having it taken away!

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big arnie says...
12:11pm Thu 17 Dec 09

I'm entirely in agreement with Ian James.

Our local Co-op is almost certainly twinned with Hades. Customers with the audacity to try to exchange money for goods are a major inconvenience to Britney and Chelsea on the tills, while they're gassing on to each other.

"Eeeeeee, Britney, I proper swear down right, them red spots on the end of our Daz's are getting bigger, honest to God they are like..."

Not what I need to hear while I'm having to pay seven quid for a pack of Jammie Dodgers.

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