According to vehicle assessor Mike Mansell, he is one of 390 ex-ReMIT staff the RMI mistakenly paid eight weeks salary in April, despite selling its training operation to Carter and Carter in August 2006.

According to Mansell, it has since asked for the money back within seven days and some former employees have received letters from a debt collection agency.

“For the moment we've all dug our heels in,” said Mansell, who said he and his colleagues accepted that the money would have to be repaid but many felt unhappy at the way they had been treated over the matter.

He told Motor Trader that initially some ex-ReMIT staffers thought the money was a form of severance pay, but became suspicious when two identical amounts were paid into their bank accounts.

Mansell said he understood that the RMIF had outsourced wages payments to a private company which was responsible for the first amount of money going out in error, and that the second payment was made as it attempted to claw this back.

In a statement Alec Murray, the RMIF's non-executive chairman confirmed that a mistake had been made by an outsourced payroll services provider, and that “erroneous salary payments were made to ex-staff members from the company's former training arm ReMIT.”

Murray said he believed the situation would be rectified quickly.