It was another shock for 1,400 laid off employees of Microsoft, when on the last weekend, the software giant communicated to them that it overpaid severance to some of the employees, while it underpaid some employees, laid off last month, and it asked the overpaid employees to return the money to company.

The company claimed that it happed due an “inadvertent administrative error”.

In one of the letters to its ex-employee, Microsoft said, "An inadvertent administrative error occurred that resulted in an overpayment in severance pay by Microsoft. We ask that you repay the overpayment and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience to you."

The authenticity of the letter was confirmed on Saturday evening, by Microsoft spokesman, Lou Gellos, who declined to comment on the matter saying that it was a "private matter between the company and the affected people."

Gellos also disclosed that several laid-off employees were underpaid. He didn’t disclose the number of people affected, but said, “There was certainly more than one." He stated that Microsoft was "taking care of underpayments."

1,400 were laid off last month by the Microsoft. It was the first lot of the 5,000 job cuts that Microsoft plans to execute over the next 18 months.