Parasol Umbrella seem to have disappeared today

[gizzmo]

I suspect that it’s - once an agency says the contract has finished there is nothing left to enforce so by picking a date in the future there is nothing for parasol to argue over ( it’s a nit strange that every contract ends on Feb 18th but hard to proof it isn’t true).

Thought that would be the case - what agency and new umbrella are you with (happy to here via pm) as I suspect they are swallowing a lot of lost commission / rebate unless the new umbrella is paying similar?

I guess no harm in saying it - Paystream will be the new umbrella for my agency. They apparently have been using them already for some new contracts and in some cases some contractors have been migrated already. My main requirement is salary sacrifice into my SIPP and i have seen on the boards here that they do allow that so hopefully i shouldn't have any issues - will need to split my Feb pay between the 2 umbrellas though

[eek]

Yep - paystream do salary sacrifice (hopefully to yours) and do seem to provide payslips and summaries that add up correctly (that's not always the case).

[MaxDev]

What a mess...
End of December I initiated a bank account switch, and as of Jan 15th, my old bank account is now closed. Luckily I don't have any outstanding payments from Parasol.

As soon as Parasol's systems were up & running again, I told them my new bank account details. Still pending.
No response to my e-mails to employment services.
Phone line hangs up on me.
The other two phone lines ("Best Advice" and "Agencies") disconnect before the first ring.
Impossible to het through to them...

I'd like to submit a timesheet for the week of Jan 10th. Question is: Should I?
I've contacted my recruitment agency, to see what they say.

Really outrageous. And it's got me worried... I'm sure I'm not the only one who has bills to pay!

[saptastic]

https://www.contractoruk.com/news/00...two_weeks.html

"Parasol expects customer service to suffer for another two weeks" - looks like there is still 'some fixing' to do.

[eek]

https://www.contractoruk.com/news/00...two_weeks.html

"Parasol expects customer service to suffer for another two weeks" - looks like there is still 'some fixing' to do.

Anything that is done out of order needs to be synced before the systems can be used again. There is basically going to be a massive reconciliation task that needs to be done to identify what payments have been done completely and which ones haven't.

Now I know that Parasol have set things up so that it requires an Agency to terminate the contract before you can leave but I suspect few agencies are going to object to that at the moment provided you are just happy to move to another on their PSL list.

[lucyclarityumbrella]

We have seen quite a few agencies allow contractors to move, just be aware that this may cause a momentary issue with your tax as HMRC are likely to see dual employment, and until P45's get issued the tax may not be correct.

[agentzero]

https://www.contractoruk.com/news/00...two_weeks.html

"Parasol expects customer service to suffer for another two weeks" - looks like there is still 'some fixing' to do.

Parasol seem to be going down the drain, slower than expected. Anybody who stays with Parasol and linked companies (SJD, Nixon Williams, Clearsky, FirstFreelance) after this is a chump.

[pacontracting]

I finally got my November timesheet paid today and correctly (subtracting the interim payment). They have promised to refund margin so we'll see if that happens but I'm just glad to have gotten what was sitting in their accounts for two weeks.

Hopefully everyone else will be sorted by the weekend, which will be good news to a lot of people caught up in this.

[Wilf]

Just received £580, which seems quite a random amount. Oh well.

[Ariosa]

Latest email from Parasol CEO - apparently data has been copied and leaked!!!


Good Morning,


As you are aware, Optionis recently experienced a cyber security incident and I want to thank you again for your patience over the past few weeks while we have been investigating the situation. The incident has been contained and we have notified the police and relevant authorities.


Our security team has now detected that some data belonging to Optionis was copied from our system and we believe some of that has been leaked online.


At this stage we have not been able to ascertain the precise nature of the information, however we are investigating this as an absolute priority.


We felt that it was important to let you know about this development and we can assure you that we will inform you as a matter of urgency should we uncover that personal data which is likely to result in a high risk to you has been leaked.


We continue to take this incident extremely seriously and will keep you informed as the situation develops.


To assist us in providing expert security advice we have partnered with Experian, the world’s leading global information services company, and have set up a dedicated helpline should you have any questions on the above.


You can contact Experian on 0800 064 0433 Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.


Yours sincerely,


Doug Crawford,
CEO Optionis