Agency offering rates they can never pay...

[Lance]

most agencies are fairly honest (yeah I know).
At the end of the day they won't last long if they get a bad reputation. Clients don't like them being twats.

And a lot of the larger agencies with larger clients are on a fixed margin anyway.

[pr1]

Same but I have come across a few situations where the agent admitted they won't be paying the rate on the jobserve ad. In every case they blamed the client dropping the rate. I actually took one of the roles as the rate offered was only a few 10's of pounds different and the reduced figure was still a good rate. No sniff of any underhandness going on. Just a case of the agent overstating the rate on jobserve which they admitted.

Interestingly enough I don't think I've had the agents pulling any of the tricks that we see on here from time to time. I'd like to believe if you can convince the agent you know what you are doing from the off they'll not pull the funnies on you. I can't help feeling that some of the people that have fallen foul of agency tricks are partly responsible for giving them the opportunity to do so. Maybe not in this case as it's rather more complicated. They are salespeople and do this day in day out so will be very good and manipulating situations. I don't believe there are many 'bad eggs' that will try pull the wool over every single contractor. Surely they won't last very long if they aren't a bit smart about it? Or have I just not come across one of these... or have I met one and they've played me like a fiddle and I didn't know?
Part of the fun of contracting.

You answered your own question before you asked it

[northernladuk]

You answered your own question before you asked it

I've seen the clients rate at every gig I've been at, either by hanging round the printer or just chatting to them once I've got my feet under the table and all was correct. Can't deny that possibility is always there though.. BIDI.