A friend/coworker of mine recently left the company after his internship ended. He later told me that got overpaid with his last salary but also said that I shouldn’t tell anyone so he didn’t have to pay it back.
This is a difficult situation for me, on the one hand I feel like he absolutely needs to tell the company and give the money back if they insist (most likely) especially as he definitely knows he’s been paid too much. On the other hand he’s asked me not to tell anyone and I’m good friends with him so I wouldn’t want to be the bad guy and tell someone behind their back. Even if I did it anonymously he’d know I was behind it.
I feel like I’m personally lying to my employer and am kinda mad at my friend for getting me involved in this. He isn’t in need of money so I understand him even less, it’s about 500€ which isn’t much for him but for me that’s a significant amount of money (even if it’s probably nothing for the company).
What do I do now? Both ways seem wrong to me but our company explicitly states to "immediately inform them of any wrong payments," which makes me feel even worse. I’ve tried to tell my friend that I would speak up, and if he doesn’t, he’ll probably have to pay it back eventually anyway, and if they find out he knew, it’ll probably turn out pretty bad, but it’s no big deal for him. He treats this situation as if someone had accidentally repaid him 10€ instead of 9€.
Any suggestions? Am I obligated to do something about this/tell my employer etc.? Do I have to fear any consequences if I don’t do anything?