provident agents [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM]

stormchild

Hi, I'm 'self employed' as an agent with provident. In the current financial climate there are quite a few customers struggling with their debts but we the 'AGENTS' are essentially subsidising the company. They have brought in a new policy where if a customer falls behind in payments they are penalising us upto £15 depending on the state of their account. As of today I stand to lose £50 this week as I know these customers cannot pay the amounts being asked for. There are lots of people visiting C.A.B and entering Iva's debt management etc which are outwith our control yet they see fit to still go ahead with this draconian measure. Lots of people are unhappy with this and we appear to be helpless and unable to stop this. Does anyone have any advice they could possibly give?

property.advert

Go to your contract. If it is there in the terms and conditions then re aware of it when you signed up and cannot now bleat about it. If it is not in your contract and you have not subsequently adopted it or agreed to it, then it cannot be forced upon you. However, your contract is presumably a one of business, not employment and as such, you are expected to shoulder some risk. How much will be in your contract.

stormchild

contract pretty much one of you collect money, dish out loans, 52 weeks of the year. we want time off we need a deputy. nothing in there about comissions etc.

Russe11

What did you moan about before?

Should have more customers at the moment! or are people not using short term cash loans much these days?

olivia84

hi there, it's a shame you had a couple of negative replies to your query. (albeit some advice) i lurk on the debt free wannabe board alot and provident personal credit are really frowned upon because of the interest they charge however, i have used provident for many years and at the end of the day when your credit's shot to pieces, they are usually the only ones who will touch you with a barge pole. some people might see this as exploitation but that is the price you pay for getting into trouble with debt in the past (well that is my experience anyway) anyway, at the end of the day, agents are only trying to do a job (which are few and far between these days) i know that my provident agent just scrapes a living (she has been an agent for around 30 years) and often loses wages because of non payers.

i would look really hard into your contract with them and hope that the contract you signed doesn't say anything about this £15 charge and maybe you can contest it. surely provident should chase up non payers on your behalf?

since i get paid monthly i pay my provident money 4 weeks in advance to my agent on payday. could you do something similar with your monthly paid customers?

i don't really know what else to suggest - provident are so so expensive, but at the end of the day no one forces loans on me and customers are well aware of their payments when they sign up. my loan is finished in august and i sincerely hope never to take another one out.

if it gets so bad, you really should look for another job - hard at the moment i know - but one with hopefully less hassles for you.

olivia84

sorry - i just read you reply about nothing in your contract - surely they are breaking the contract? surely they have to state that sort of thing in it? i would maybe contact ACAS

scooby088

I was an agent for shopacheck and i was tired of being deducted monies for various errors by central admin, at the end of the day i thought the 7% commission i got wasn't worth the hassle, so i decided to leave which was the best thing i could've done.

stormchild

its a viscious circle at the moment, you take on more customers and they dont pay then you lose £15 through the system that provident are working. at the end of the day they say this is a bad debt charge against the customers being in arrears but lets face it if they were all squeaky clean then they wouldn't touch provident and provident actively encourage people with poor credit history. as I see it a debt is only bad when its gone full term and still outstanding!! the office managers, when you complain to them they say that we should see the company's books on bad debt but there yearly profits are up millions. To everyone else you are probably right that its time to move on but when you've been doing it 16 years with the same company its a wrench. thanks to all who tried to help.

GraceCourt

stormchild wrote: »

its a viscious circle at the moment, you take on more customers and they dont pay then you lose £15 through the system that provident are working.

Stormchild, it might help to clarify your position in fairly stark terms, which are these: if there is something in your contract that explicitly empowers Provident to make the £15 deduction if/when your customer is in arrears, then there is not much you can do about it (except to leave, as soon as possible, according to what that contract permits as far as leaving is concerned).

If, however, there is nothing in the contract about the £15 deductions, then it is unlawful, and you can recover it as a civil debt.

The easiest way to take this forward is simply to write to the company (you could hand the letter to your line manager so that you can prove it was delivered) along the following lines:

Dear [name of line manager],

I was most concerned to find that [amount] has been deducted from my commission/earnings last month, which I understand is levied by the company allegedly because one or more of my customers is in arrears. However, I am writing to establish the legal basis for such deductions because I was unaware that this might happen, and as you can imagine, I do not understand why such charges are made against me if/when my customers are suffering genuine hardship.

Please note that if there is no such legal basis, I intend to recover all such deductions from you through proceedings under Part 27 Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (Small Claims Track of the County Court) unless you make payment of all such sums deducted to me within 14 days of the date of this letter.

Alternatively, if there is a legal basis for these, please confirm that all such deductions will be refunded to me at such time as the relevant customer account is restored to good order in due course.

Yours etc.

teamspirit

I also am an agent for provident and myself and my colleagues are furious at these new measures introduced to try and 'control' arrears. Apparently we have to be made accountable for the arrears on our books. We are already penalized for this as we are paid a lower rate of commission on customers who fall behind with their payments whether through genuine hardship or not. Also why should we be made accountable for someone losing their job or any other change in circumstances that prevent them being able to pay their weekly rate. Yes we are rewarded sometimes for attracting new business so maybe there should be some sort of 'claw back' when these accounts go 'bad' but under the new scheme its irrelevant whether we put the customer on or not. Any advice from other agents who have any info on how we can oppose this would be greatfully appreciated.

carolwat

GraceCourt wrote: »

Alternatively, if there is a legal basis for these, please confirm that all such deductions will be refunded to me at such time as the relevant customer account is restored to good order in due course.

Yours etc.

Just want to say that this is exactly what will happen. As soon as the customer has paid the required amount they move backup a stage in arrears and the money is clawed back by the agent.