Agent sold me a pup...

[TheFaQQer]

Tried to contact the pimp but not heard back (funny that).

Give your seven days notice, because the contract needs to be corrected to reflect the right length of time down to six months.

You can guarantee that the agent will get in touch once you are in that notice period.

[VectraMan]

+1, Can't understand the logic of this, if the pimp is trying to pull something (no idea what) with the contract length then what else if he up to... is the OP sure its not a genuine mistake?

A longer term is attractive to some, and generally they try to justify lower rates that way but as has been said the contract is really as long as the notice period (which means the term only really means you agree a rate for that long). But still, Greg's right: you'd be pissed off, and feel like you'd been mislead. If it's 6 months that's still fair enough, but if the first act of a new relationship was being lied to I wouldn't have any qualms about walking away if something better came up.

[TheDandy]

I think anyone would be pissed off. If you have let yourself be mugged on rate on the pretext that it is a 12 month contract then either suck it up or jack it in, or try a renegotiate the rate. Make sure the end client knows it was not your fault though. The client of course could be just as guilty and the team lead was just shouting his mouth off and let the cat out the bag as to what their real intent is. Unless you get to see the upper contract then you won't really know for sure.

Depends if you can afford to walk on a principle. Is it 7 days notice both ways? If you haven't got a notice period and want to walk on the pretext that the contract doesn't reflect the true basis under which you made it then you need to act when you found out the discrepancy, not in a couple of weeks time.

[Sausage Surprise]

Similar thing happened to me a few years back. 3 weeks in to a 6 month contract the programme manager takes me to one side and gives me my months notice, as they now have the permanent replacement. Oh... and could I do a handover in my last 4 weeks? He said that they had told the agency this but the agent sold it to me as 6 months+ work. No mention of me being there till they found someone permanent.
To make matters worse I had just signed a 6 month lease on a flat and the 4 weeks took me to the end of November!!
I learned my lesson after 2 months bench warming and a costly buy out of the lease!

[Sausage Surprise]

A longer term is attractive to some, and generally they try to justify lower rates that way but as has been said the contract is really as long as the notice period (which means the term only really means you agree a rate for that long). But still, Greg's right: you'd be pissed off, and feel like you'd been mislead. If it's 6 months that's still fair enough, but if the first act of a new relationship was being lied to I wouldn't have any qualms about walking away if something better came up.

Misled

[kal]

A longer term is attractive to some, and generally they try to justify lower rates that way but as has been said the contract is really as long as the notice period (which means the term only really means you agree a rate for that long). But still, Greg's right: you'd be pissed off, and feel like you'd been mislead. If it's 6 months that's still fair enough, but if the first act of a new relationship was being lied to I wouldn't have any qualms about walking away if something better came up.

Couldn't agree more, if the agent has pulled the 'its a lower rate because its a 12 month contract' then that is not on if the intention from the outset is that it isn't.

I remember one agent trying to sell me Java dev role local to me paying ~ 200 a day, he tried to explain the p!ss poor rate by saying that the rate was low because it was a long term contract and they had several yrs work in the pipeline! When I informed him that contract length was meaningless he suddenly went quiet

[Cenobite]

I remember one agent trying to sell me Java dev role local to me paying ~ 200 a day, he tried to explain the p!ss poor rate by saying that the rate was low because it was a long term contract

Someone's already said it better on this forum, but why should it be the contractor who is expected to take a lower rate when the contract is long? The agent benefits from a long contract too, so why can't they drop their commission?

Also, I don't think contracts are even as good as their notice period: what with MOO and all that. To paraphrase someone from this forum again, contracting is like a middle-class zero hours contract.

[VectraMan]

Misled

Similar thing happened to me a few years back. 3 weeks in to a 6 month contract the programme manager takes me to one side and gives me my months notice, as they now have the permanent replacement. Oh... and could I do a handover in my last 4 weeks? He said that they had told the agency this but the agent sold it to me as 6 months+ work. No mention of me being there till they found someone permanent.

Yeah but you contractors like to go on about being a "flexible resource" to justify your high rates and tax avoidance. It's not very flexible if you have to hire someone for a fixed 6 months no matter what.

[MojoDog]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm not whinging and I'm getting the rate that I negotiated, which has no bearing on the contract length.

In my experience, every contract I've signed has been for a specific timescale: some have been binned early due to budgets (tulip happens) and most have been extended but none have ever had an incorrect contract length.

Has the agent made an honest mistake? Possibly, but I sincerely doubt it. Maternity leave requirement is not something that crops up unexpectedly; it was the reason for the client looking for a contract replacement! Add to this the size of the agency and how hard they hammer other aspects of the contract, I'm sure you can understand my doubts.

I'm not a pushover and I am indeed fuming but bitching about it is not going to change the situation.

Moving forward I'm going to smash the hours in and take as much job experience as I can and be a model contractor for the client.

I've tried to contact the agent once and heard nothing, so the next time I contact them will be to submit 1 weeks notice, cc'd to the client and explaining exactly why I'm leaving.

Talking about this to another contractor onsite this morning, he said of the agents; "they're a right bunch of 'See You Next Tuesdays'...

Best I can do is take it as a lesson learned and to paraphrase Pete Townshend; make sure I won't get fooled again..,

[northernladuk]

To be fair I've known 3 people take maternity leave contracts and in every case the person didn't turn back up and the contracts lasted much longer than a year. That said still a little sneaky of the agency.