Contract Length
Contract Length – my agency lied to me.
A contractor contacted Dr. McLaughlin’s IT surgery on his contract length.
Contract Ending
After being out of work for 6 months and only being 5 weeks into a contract that the agency told me was for 6 months, they now tell me that my contract is ending.
It seems that the client had always believed that the contract length had been only 5 weeks anyway.
I am, therefore, absolutely astounded and sickened by this. That’s because I was thinking that I am set up for the next six months. So, I turned down a six-month contract with another company because the terms of this one were slightly better and slightly closer to home.
The agency knew about the other contract offer when they told me about the contract length.
Upped the Contract Length
In fact they told me, originally, that this contract length was only 5 weeks. I told the agency at the time that I had a longer contract on offer.
They said, therefore, that they would contact the client to see if they would take me on for longer. They came back and said that the client had agreed a contract length of six-months.
I was over the moon as I am in some financial difficulty after six months out of work.
The client is as bemused as I am.
There was a one-week notice period on the contract. The agency say that the client is just using this.
Dr. McLaughlin, is there anything I can do about this?
Dr. McLaughlin
This is desperately awful dirty trick that the agency has played on you. You asked me not to mention the name of agency, although you told me who it was. This is an agency you need to name and shame.
The most important next step for you is to garner evidence and to speak to a solicitor immediately.
It would be very handy if you were to get hold of the agency / client contract. Your client may be sympathetic to your plight and let you have a copy. It does not cost them anything.
I would say that your agency is on very sticky legal ground here. They will say that your contract is only to provide contractual services to this particular client and that the client terminated this contract with a week’s notice.
However, this was an attempt to deceive you and you would be well within your rights to sue for the loss of income they caused you by this deception. For this is what it is.
I would also expect that their might be some sort of fraud involved here and that the police might take more than a little interest in it.
I would only go to the police as a last resort. You don’t have much chance of getting money off of someone who is in prison.
Use it as leverage though to try to get some sort of compensation from them.
The first step though is to see a solicitor and get his or her advice. If you can go along to see the solicitor with both your own contract and the agency / client one, then that would be a good start.
What a filthy trick by an agency as regards the contract length!
Sorry to say this happens all the time I once got sent to an inv bank for what I thought was a 3 months minimum contract. 3 days later I discovered it was 3 days work….no wonder it was so easy to get the contract.