Reply to: umbrella company refer a friend - offer changed after I referred

[Vallah]

£36 for a Faster Payments fee?! Good lord above, that is absolute daylight robbery.

Who on earth do you bank with? We use Faster Payments for anything under £10K, and of the top of my head we pay something like 40p per transaction. CHAPS payments cost a lot more, say £20, but we rarely if ever use those. Faster Payments should be roughly the same as a BACS fee.

[Steven@Parasol]

So by making their refer a friend incentive 10 free fasterpayments the cost to them is about £20 (10 x Fasterpay fee @ £2 each) rather than spending £100.

REALLY generous offer......

That's not quite accurate.

In order for us to be able to offer the same day payment option we rely on a number of services, including faster payments, so that we can meet that requirement. For businesses this does unfortunately incur a charge which is a lot more than the £2 that the man in the street is charged. There is also a need to manually change our processes and admin systems in order that we can offer same day payments which also incur a charge.

We are completely open and transparent about the fact that we do charge contractors for the same day payment service, including the same day payments section on the My Parasol web portal.

[ilovehr]

So by making their refer a friend incentive 10 free fasterpayments the cost to them is about £20 (10 x Fasterpay fee @ £2 each) rather than spending £100.

REALLY generous offer......

[ilovehr]

[QUOTE=Steven@Parasol;1321292]This offer is ten faster payments which is valued at £360.

QUOTE]

Jesus, when did Fasterpay cost £36 a shot??? Sounds like Parasol are making a bit of extra revenue charging £36 for a service which actually costs the company £2.00......

[chrisk]

A final Word

Hi All.

I have now received the vouchers so thank you to all on this site who offered advice and thanks to Parasol for finally sorting it out. I just want to address a couple of points that Steven has made in his post.

1) I don't understand how Parasol don't have me on the system as referring Steve. I completed the friend referral bit of the website and Steve was called by parasol shortly after this which lead to him rejoining.

2) Steve has worked with Parasol before but has also contacted Parasol to inform them that had I not discussed their recently improved service with him it is very unlikely he would have rejoined. Therefore it is directly due to my actions that parasol have his business now.

3) My memory could fail me here.. And apologies in advance if that is the case but I have been with Parasol for a good while now and don't recall ever being asked to complete a questionnaire on refer a friend incentives.

Over and out.

C

[jmo21]

If you dont need your money faster it has no value.

I laughed at that too.

Just give me the £360.

Come on Steve, how did you come up with that?

[escapeUK]

This offer is ten faster payments which is valued at £360.

If you dont need your money faster it has no value.

[Steven@Parasol]

Hi.

I have referred a friend to my unbrella company. At the time I referred him the reward was £100 of vouchers. Now he is set up with them I have asked for my vouchers and been told that the reward has changed to 10 quicker payments (something I am not interested in). They now say on threir website that the reward is 10 faster payments but this changed much more recently than when I made the referral. I think I am entitled to the vouchers as this is what was advertised when I made the referral. I have been in touch with the company in question and they are refusing to give me anything apart from the faster payments.

Does anyone know what is the appropriate organisation to make a complaint to about this?

Many thanks in advance.

C

Hi All, I just wanted to chip in as it is our (Parasol's) referral scheme that is being discussed here. I am arranging for the OP to be issued with the vouchers he wanted but I just wanted to try to explain the process a little bit.

We do not have the OP listed anywhere as referring this person in our system and indeed the individual in question did not include the OP as a referrer when they signed up to us. Also, the individual was not new to Parasol, they were a reactivation and had worked with us previously. It is usually brand new sign-ups that qualify for the refer a friend scheme so again this example would not qualify as per the T&Cs.

Also, the person being referred did not sign up with us until the end of March when the faster payments offer was then active. As we value the OPs custom and he has been with us for a long time, when he contacted us to inform us that this should have been a referral, we happily offered him the current refer a friend offer despite all of the above. This offer is ten faster payments which is valued at £360.

We really want our refer a friend scheme to work and be attractive to contractors and we do listen to feedback such as this and act on it when we can as I hope we’ve demonstrated here. When we surveyed the 8,500 contractor we work with the feedback was that faster payments were more attractive then vouchers, hence why we changed the offer. We will happily look at this again however in light of this discussion.

If anyone has any questions they can always give me a shout on here or email me at steven.proud@parasolgroup.co.uk.

Hope that helps.

[GillsMan]

The Advertising Standards Authority can now deal with online marketing so they may be your best bet but I think you would probably need proof that they had deliberately tried to mislead you.

Nope. The onus of proof is on the advertiser, not the complainant (as long as the complainant isn't a competitor). The ASA's remit only extended to online marketing in March this year. Funnily enough, I used to be the Remit Guru for the ASA (I used to be consulted on whether a case fell within the ASA's remit while I worked there), but I left long before all the remit extension, so I don't know quite how far the ASA's powers go.

Yep.. that's who I was really thinking of. Don't know why OFCOM came to mind to be honest. Obviously the ASA weren't doing a great marketting job.

Ofcom used to deal with complaints about TV and radio advertising. Then they contracted it out to the ASA in 2004, creating a 'one-stop-shop' for advertising complaints. So mixing them up isn't quite as ludicrous as you might have thought!

To the OP - yes, complain to the ASA. When I used to deal with complaints like this, often a call to the advertiser would lead to them just offering the prize to the complainant anyway. In your complaint to the ASA, state that you are happy to be named to the advertiser as this will save time.

Also, ditch the umbrella co shortly after. They sound like twats.

[SueEllen]

Threaten to name them on this board......

The cheapest and most effective way.

I actually know a few companies now (not umbrella companies) that have screwed people over introductions of staff and contractors.

[rd409]

Threaten to name them on this board......

[Old Greg]

Make a small claim through the courts.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Yep.. that's who I was really thinking of. Don't know why OFCOM came to mind to be honest. Obviously the ASA weren't doing a great marketting job.

LOL

[pmeswani]

What sort of cowboy firm would quibble about a relatively small amount like £100? If I was you and your friend, I'd threaten to leave and sign up with somebody more honest. Word of mouth is an extremely cheap, efficient means of advertising compared to most other forms, and if they can't keep to their word they don't deserve to keep your business.

That's a bit harsh. Just remember, we only have one side of the story here. We don't know the full reason as to why the Umbrella won't give the £100 in vouches. Let's see how the complaint goes with the ASA, if the OP wins, great. If the OP really feels agrieved, then yes, I agree, walk away from the Umbrella and go elsewhere. To call the Umbrella cowboys, is a bit harsh without hearing their side of the story.

[Vallah]

What sort of cowboy firm would quibble about a relatively small amount like £100? If I was you and your friend, I'd threaten to leave and sign up with somebody more honest. Word of mouth is an extremely cheap, efficient means of advertising compared to most other forms, and if they can't keep to their word they don't deserve to keep your business.