Paystream - AVOID

[ascender]

All explained here..

What are the costs and fees of an umbrella company?

Thanks.... no idea how I’ve missed that explanation before.

[luckydog]

Yes, please avoid Paystream. I've used 6CATS umbrella before and they only charged £10 per pay - that was 3 years ago (Paystream charge £88).
I had a 14-day job (13 days in November, 1st day of December), and Paystream combined them into 1 payment, but 2 payslips. This allowed them to charge me their exorbitant fee of £88 TWICE. The second time was just for the 1st day of December.

After trying to get a refund of the second fee, they said they could only do that if I had another pay coming (which I don't). The high fee is already a rip-off (another umbrella company did the same for me previously for a fee of £10). But to charge that for one day, on a 14-day total job is another level of rip-off. Don't use this company, there are much better deals out there.

[Smoggy]

I've been using Paystream for a while and they've been very good. I pay £30 a week for getting paid weekly which includes them sorting out a SIPP contribution. Presumably £88 is a monthly figure and you've just been a bit unlucky it's been split over two months. Systems like this will be automatic though and it would be a total pain for them to somehow fudge it to pay your December day in November. Might also not even be possible to do this with something ike national insurance calculations which are dependent on payment period?

Also in their defence I doubt they're actually making any profit from you having had to onboard you for such a short contract. There may be cheaper brollies out there but this forum is full of horror stories of dodgy companies. I'm happy to pay what I think is a reasonable price for a reliable service.

[cojak]

Yep, short projects are notoriously unprofitable for umbrellas, and your contractor had the misfortune to be split over 2 months. Not many accept such short contracts.

I’m sure that Paystream is ok over longer contracts. They are recommended and you get what you pay for in this industry.