Thousands of Universal Credit claimants have been warned about phantom payments that could leave them short-changed.

You could be affected if you are in receipt of Universal Credit, working and are paid through PAYE.

Employers inform HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) every time they pay a worker who received Universal Credit, telling them their pay, payroll benefits and any tax deductions.

This, with other pieces of information, is then passed from HMRC to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in order to work out how much Universal Credit should be paid to a claimant.

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However, if information from your employer or HMRC is incorrect, you could receive less or more money than you should.

If you do are paid more than you should be you will have to pay the money back, while if your employer submits your information late you could see later Universal Credit payments reduced.

Missing information from your employer could result in you not receiving Universal Credit payments at all.

These have been described as “phantom” payments by the DWP, and is also known as a Real Time Information (RTI) error.

You can check if you have been affected by a phantom payment using HMRC’s website or app.

Anna Stevenson, senior welfare benefits specialist at anti-poverty charity Turn2Us, told The Sun: “If the wrong amount has been reported to HMRC, you’ll need to ask your employer to correct it.

"You should also contact the DWP and ask them to do an 'RTI dispute'.

"This means that DWP will look again at the amount of earnings that have been reported to them and should be able to correct it."

The DWP has 14 days to look into your case once reported and make a decision on that period.

A DWP spokesman said: "In the vast majority of cases using Real Time Information (RTI) supplied by employers is an efficient and accurate method of calculating Universal Credit payments.

"Fewer than 1% of remaining cases are referred to HMRC for clarification of earnings.

“If a claimant wishes to dispute the earnings information we have used, they can submit evidence to us, and we will look into the case to see if a change needs to be made."