Agencies to avoid....

[Tank]

Update for completeness

November invoice now paid.

Client severed relationship with Coal and all handcuff clauses waived.

New agency now in place.

[nozmeister]

AIUI Coal had problems with paying HMRC VAT last year, sounds like they are still problematic...

[Tank]

Avoid Coal IT

Late payment issues. A number of contractors at current client site have November invoices that should have been settled 08/11 that are still outstanding (others through the same agency have been paid).

Emails to the payments team not being responded to. Do get contact / responses from the Agent who can only advise he is doing what he can do get payment through as soon as possible.

Will continue with the email / dunning process whilst maintaining contact with the Agent (who I really do feel is doing his best to sort).

Just posting as a heads up as I see Coal are still posting vacancies.

[MrMarkyMark]

How do you known if you've not had a gig through them?

Not just me then...

Maybe they give good "phone"

[northernladuk]

Never got a gig with them but they're one of the best to deal with in South West.

How do you known if you've not had a gig through them?

[psychocandy]

2. CPS Group (Cardiff)/Leading Resolutions: very dodgy bunch of grifters: got me an interview, employer liked me and wanted me initially for less than 2 months, agreed that I would start once contracts were in place but then on a Friday night told me that initial contract was less than 2 weeks and wanted affirmation on a Friday night whilst out with my family. After being bullied into agreeing, waited all weekend for a contract and was told on Monday that another candidate had been interviewed and offered the job because I had "issues with the revised length of contract" - when the original scope was ABSOLUTELY agreed to be 6 WEEKs. DO NOT USE THEM and be very careful about entering into any contractual obligation. After all, it's a very easy thing to make someone work for 4 weeks then try to pay them on the basis of gross or professional misconduct.

Never got a gig with them but they're one of the best to deal with in South West.

[kaiser78]

I will have to add in a comment about Lorien as well, as I'm currently going through them for my soon-to-be new role, starting in a few weeks.
- Their payment terms are 10 working days, which seems fine.
- We agreed a rate, and then they phoned me up a few hours later, and said "we managed to secure you £50 more a day". Surprisingly nice of them. I assume they get paid a % of my rate.
- They have no paid-when-paid policies in regards to the last month or expenses.
- Their online portal (so far) seems reasonably good.
- They respond super quickly to emails, and phone calls, so communication seems decent so far.

My current gig is 5 working days payment terms g One agent not to avoid, who are also very good and helpful. Used them a couple of times.

[RustyWire]

[QUOTE=SirEffedOffALot;2336484]Hi there.

<snip>Leading Resolutions: very dodgy bunch of grifters<snip)/QUOTE]

I did some work for them earlier this year - bunch of cowboys!

[SirEffedOffALot]

Bogus comoanies to Avoid

Hi there.

Here are some companies to avoid:

1. FourthLine: Time waster - never seem to have any jobs and are generally just intelligence gathering on people's salaries, rates and who they work for. Promises to call back and never does. Useless and I honestly don't know how they stay in business - on three separate occasions they have been less than useless on trying to assist with work.

2. CPS Group (Cardiff)/Leading Resolutions: very dodgy bunch of grifters: got me an interview, employer liked me and wanted me initially for less than 2 months, agreed that I would start once contracts were in place but then on a Friday night told me that initial contract was less than 2 weeks and wanted affirmation on a Friday night whilst out with my family. After being bullied into agreeing, waited all weekend for a contract and was told on Monday that another candidate had been interviewed and offered the job because I had "issues with the revised length of contract" - when the original scope was ABSOLUTELY agreed to be 6 WEEKs. DO NOT USE THEM and be very careful about entering into any contractual obligation. After all, it's a very easy thing to make someone work for 4 weeks then try to pay them on the basis of gross or professional misconduct.

I could go on - there are so many really poorly managed companies out there with time waster - i.e Apollo Recruitment

[IR36Contractor]

I was speaking to landlord of my local, and he's owed money (over 10K) by a local shyster who took over the local town non league footy club. It turns out this guy opens a company, runs it to the ground, incurs debts to around 250K, marks it insolvent so creditors struggle to get the money back. He then opens up another. My landlord said HMRC will do nothing, something about the 250K limit. I found him on DueDil with about 50 companies, mostly struck off, to his name, which he keeps on altering slightly.

And yet they spend all this money with IR35 coming after contractors who the majority of which run their companies properly, legally and pay debts on time.

Makes yer mad!

qh

Erm, some contracting agencies do this as well. Check out Platform People LLP, and now FSI Elite Ltd. First company becomes insolvent, then the second becomes insolvent a few months later, owing thousands to a dozen or more contractors that they haven't passed on despite billing the clients! Unsecured creditor? Tough luck!

The latest phoenix operation by the same directors is called Financial Services Resource Group Ltd, already posting roles under the name FSR Group on twitter and LinkedIn. Of course they may be able to run it as a successful business this time given all the previous experience of failures, but you have been warned.
The law sucks when people can get away with this kind of behaviour repeatedly.