Employment agency refuses to pay me what was agreed !

[pugilist]

Good evening everyone,

 

Here's the story. I worked as a self-employed worker for three days for a new employment agency. The agreed rate was £20 p/h. But the next week it turned out that they paid me at the wrong rate of £19p/h.  I politely attracted their attention to this mistake. At first they accused me of lying about the agreed rate. Then they admitted that thay made a mistake and told me that next week they will pay me the difference. 

And here comes the problem. The difference is £24 pounds. The payroll company's margin for processing payments is £15.00.  Minus 20 % tax means that the net payment which is going to come into my bank account will be around £5.00 or so. But if the payment was made correctly last week, I would have got £19.20 of net payment more than I received. 

That means that due to the agency's error I will get less money than expected and actually agreed. 

 

I contacted them in writing via their online form on their site, and in response i got false accusations of lying etc. They were rude and utterly unprofessional in their reply. They even told me not to contact them any more, otherwise they would treat my correspondence as harrasment. They even refused to provide me with the name of the person who was in correspondence with me. "They" means so called Compliance Team. 

 

I am really at a loss. Completely shocked to be treated this way. At no point of my communication with them I was rude or disrespectfull. But they were. They were even agressive without directly calling me names though. Such offensive style was totally uncalled for. I also want to file a complain somewhere about their outrageous treatment of workers. Please advise where to, if such an authority exists

 

I tried to appeal to their common sense without taking them to court, but they refused to cooperate.

 

What is my next step? Letter Before Action, I suppose? But how should I classify this? Unlawful deduction? 

As far as I understand I need to use the small claims procedure. 

Do you think there are any chances to redress the injustice? I mean, the amount they owe me is not more than £10. It is really small. But I don't want to let this situation go.

 

 

Edited September 9, 2021 by pugilist

[pugilist]

Thank you everyone. The issue is sorted.

[honeybee13]

Well done.

 

Please tell us more, it could help someone in the same position as you.

 

HB

[pugilist]

Well, it didn't even come to Letter Before Action. I made all the calculations and told them what and why they owe me and why I expect to get the exact amount i showed them.  And explained why i wouldn't accept any other amount due to possible additional payroll company charge. 

 

The woman kept on being rude and uncooperative, but the money came very quickly into my account very quickly. The exact amount i specified.

 

Of course no apologies followed from their side. But i don't think there's much i can do about it.