Sue agency for not having schedule of work signed off

**stek** · 31 July 2014, 20:56

This is business and not employment. Forget it and keep looking.....

**northernladuk** · 31 July 2014, 20:59

What Stek says. Asking a client to wait 30 days makes this kinda of outcome extremely likely. Dunno where you stand with item 2 though.

**blu** · 31 July 2014, 21:49

Yes I did forget it and looked for 2 months and the search is coming to an end, so now I have some time to go back and find a way to claw back some actual realized loss as well as unrealized opportunity cost.

It's more about the agent not doing their job properly, misguiding me to resign when things are up in the air which is certainly not industry standard after talking to several other agents, and in the end only achieving putting another person into unemployment.

Thought I'll ask for some advice on here before going to the financial ombudsman. Does anyone think it's worth having a go? Do I have a case?

**SpontaneousOrder** · 31 July 2014, 23:33

It sounds to me as though you went into contracting with no idea what it means to be in business for yourself. I'm not talking from a huge position of experience, But...

I'd personally just say "man up, learn the lesson, move on."

Even if you had started you could have been binned with 2 weeks notice, and it's very likely that they wouldn't even be required to actually give you any invoice able work during that period. Then what would you have done?

**kal** · 1 August 2014, 02:50

Welcome to the wonderful world of dealing with agents. My philosophy is to never believe a word they tell you, if an agent says the sky is blue it's best to look out of the window to check

**Scruff** · 1 August 2014, 06:13

In order to determine the terms of the contract, you would have to present it for assessment by a suitably qualified AND experienced person. It would be covered by Civil Law.

From what you have indicated, it's very sad, but you haven't had any actual losses. You neither started the contract, nor performed any work?

Was the contract in England, Wales, NI or Scotland?

**SueEllen** · 1 August 2014, 07:57

The financial ombudsman wouldn't be interested.

If you have documentary proof of 2 then take them to the small claims court for your money. However first you need to send them a recorded signed for letter asking them for them money giving them a reasonable time for them to make a payment to you.

**GillsMan** · 1 August 2014, 08:03

Originally posted by blu View Post

Thought I'll ask for some advice on here before going to the financial ombudsman. Does anyone think it's worth having a go? Do I have a case?

No, unfortunately you don't have a case, and certainly not with the Financial Ombudsman who, as their name suggests, deal with financial companies, such as banks, insurance companies, and the like.

**GazCol** · 1 August 2014, 08:19

Originally posted by blu View Post

Hi all,

As I explained in another thread ... in May I went for an interview for a contractor role, got accepted, agent sent over a signed contract, I signed & returned it and they asked me to resign from my then current perm position, so I gave my 30 day notice. Monday of my last week at my perm job (early June) I get an email from the agent that the project at the new place has been pulled and the contract has to be terminated.

Couldn't get my perm position back so I've spent the last two months looking for work.

I would appreciate any advice on how to pursue compensation from the agency because:
1) the contract states a 2 week notice period for terminating the contract and I expect this would have to be paid before they can terminate it - tho I read somewhere the contract is only in effect if I had started work so could it be that this is in fact useless venture?
2) after a bit of digging around it appears that the agency sent me the signed contract before they had the schedule of work signed off from the client, and in the end the client rejected to sign their schedule of work and that was the actual reason why they terminated the contract! So in effect they took a risk in signing me up before they had the client signed up and now I'm paying for the risk they took

So perhaps I can claim some sort of compensation because of this "misconduct"?

I just find it appalling that they would ask me to resign while things are in limbo with the client and think they should pay for that. So was thinking of taking this further myself with Money Claim Online or the financial ombudsman.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

Nope, no case at all. No work - no pay, not even to compensate you for handing in your notice which couldn't be retracted.

Sue agency for not having schedule of work signed off