Agency using a trading name

[UsrBinPRL]

I never give any agency my landline numbers any more - I've been asked for it and I simply say I only use my mobile (I have more than one mobile number as well). I can then put the business mobile on call forwarding so it goes straight to answering machine.

I'm usually of the same mind but made the mistake of giving out a landline number for a phone interview as the mobile signal where I live can be a bit questionable at times and I didn't want any problems, agent has taken this as an open invitation to use it at will. Calls are going on from eight in the morning until past seven at night.

As I've now paid for the review I'll see what it says and then kick it into touch. Life's too short to be dealing with people like this and they've passed my tolerance threshold. The joke is the client location is a pain to get to and the rate is at the very bottom of my acceptable range. Only reason I did the interview initially was that the agent was somewhat creative when describing the location. Should have known really!

Enough venting for now,

UBP

[SueEllen]

Thanks SueEllen.

I know it's not illegal it's just a bit strange and I thought that I smelled a rodent. In 12 years I hadn't seen this done before, at least not quite in this way. Have had several agencies hook me then offload everything to an outsourcing company on the client's PSL once an offer had been made. I generally walk away from these after one very bad experience.

In this case they run two separate websites, one for each name but both cover pretty much the same industry sectors. I don't quite see the point.

It's called "branding" apparently.

Lots of people who are self-employed and aren't incorporated or a partnership use a Trading Name.

Some of the bad terms they've agreed in principal to change (but won't put in writing yet), like paying 7 weeks in arrears and no ability for the contractor to terminate the contract but I've walked away from better and if the contract review throws up too much I'll be doing just that.

For a bog-standard development role at a run-of-the-mill client they're also asking for a pretty intrusive credit check as well. My credit record is spotless but apart from some of the security vetting that I've had to undergo in the past I dislike mailing my passport and other personal documents to total strangers.

To be honest it's more likely that I would go to Companies House or go through your bins if I wanted to impersonate you as it's easier then going through an agency and less traceable.

The agency have now started phoning very early in the morning, all through the day and into the evening trying to push things along even though they know the contract is out for review and won't be back until Monday. They're hammering my mobile, landline, email and texts. It almost makes me nostalgic for the bad old days when I started doing this.
.

I never give any agency my landline numbers any more - I've been asked for it and I simply say I only use my mobile (I have more than one mobile number as well). I can then put the business mobile on call forwarding so it goes straight to answering machine.

[craig1]

The agency have now started phoning very early in the morning, all through the day and into the evening trying to push things along even though they know the contract is out for review and won't be back until Monday. They're hammering my mobile, landline, email and texts. It almost makes me nostalgic for the bad old days when I started doing this.

UBP.

I've only had that once in my long contracting career. I gave the agent a single chance to stop the pestering or I'd reject the contract outright, about half an hour later the agent sent me an email saying that they'd like to know what they could do to hurry the review along and would I mind starting "on good faith". He seemed shocked when I replied telling him that I no longer wished to take the role. It took adding his email address to my spam filter to get him to stop pestering me to reconsider.

[UsrBinPRL]

Thanks SueEllen.

I know it's not illegal it's just a bit strange and I thought that I smelled a rodent. In 12 years I hadn't seen this done before, at least not quite in this way. Have had several agencies hook me then offload everything to an outsourcing company on the client's PSL once an offer had been made. I generally walk away from these after one very bad experience.

In this case they run two separate websites, one for each name but both cover pretty much the same industry sectors. I don't quite see the point.

Some of the bad terms they've agreed in principal to change (but won't put in writing yet), like paying 7 weeks in arrears and no ability for the contractor to terminate the contract but I've walked away from better and if the contract review throws up too much I'll be doing just that.

For a bog-standard development role at a run-of-the-mill client they're also asking for a pretty intrusive credit check as well. My credit record is spotless but apart from some of the security vetting that I've had to undergo in the past I dislike mailing my passport and other personal documents to total strangers.

The agency have now started phoning very early in the morning, all through the day and into the evening trying to push things along even though they know the contract is out for review and won't be back until Monday. They're hammering my mobile, landline, email and texts. It almost makes me nostalgic for the bad old days when I started doing this.

UBP.

[SueEllen]

Lots of businesses use trading names.

It's not illegal and doesn't mean you are hiding something.

This was discussed before when someone didn't realise that this was legal. The example given was TigerTiger bar/nightclub in London see here- TigerTiger - Welcome To Tiger Tiger. The reason for bars to do it is it makes it easier to change the bar name if they want a new image.

In the case of recruitment agencies it would be to separate their different recruitment arms out. I've had dealings before with an agency that primarily did recruitment for the medical industry, but when they wanted to go into the technology market they just used a trading name rather than set up a new company. It's cheaper accounting wise but a bit silly when they used the same phone number for both parts of their business.

On the subject of contract terms - Lots of agencies have bad contract terms, tell you to get insurance you don't need and do tricks to force contractor to opt-out. It's nothing to do with the size of the agency just the management. Remember the agency people are sales people, and in sales you can be good at selling something with great people skills but not particularly bright.

[UsrBinPRL]

Hi all, long time contractor (over 12 years) first time caller.

For the first time in a long while I'm back looking for work. Applied for a role through an agency I'd never heard of before (often a mistake), let's call them originalName, get an interview and was offered the role the same day.

Now, from the moment the offer came in the agency suddenly changed name from originalName to newName, an agency that I had heard of, claiming that initially they had been working through a trading name. All the contract paperwork when it turned up (after many days) was using newName.

My question is, why would an agency do this unless they were hiding something?

It has to be said that newAgency has been not the most pleasant to deal with, has taken almost 5 days to get paperwork to me, has tried all the tricks in the world to get me to opt-out, has the worst payment terms I have ever seen, does not allow the contractor to terminate the agreement, has been phoning and emailing constantly, trying to get me to accept the offer before seeing the contract and has already told the client to expect me on site this week.

Have I been lucky these past years or is this now what's called "common practice"?

Thanks

UBP