provident agents [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM]

ProviAgent

I'm looking for advice from long time agents, I am currently completing my first tax return, but I was told by another agent that Provi send your statement of earnings direct to HMRC as well as yourself, so do HMRC already know my earnings? What happens when I submit mine, it will be different due to hits/wins/bonus, will I get in trouble or do I wait for HMRC to tell me how much I owe from the copy they receive? I just don't understand why they would send this to HMRC when it's supposed to be my responsibility?

demoralised

ProviAgent wrote: »

I'm looking for advice from long time agents, I am currently completing my first tax return, but I was told by another agent that Provi send your statement of earnings direct to HMRC as well as yourself, so do HMRC already know my earnings? What happens when I submit mine, it will be different due to hits/wins/bonus, will I get in trouble or do I wait for HMRC to tell me how much I owe from the copy they receive? I just don't understand why they would send this to HMRC when it's supposed to be my responsibility?

yes provi do inform HMRC of commision earned,but this will be net taking into account hits/wins, the statement you received from HQ should be what you actually earned after hits/wins were included so the figures you submit should be the same. You must submit a tax return yourself or you will be fined by HMRC.

ProviAgent

demoralised wrote: »

yes provi do inform HMRC of commision earned,but this will be net taking into account hits/wins, the statement you received from HQ should be what you actually earned after hits/wins were included so the figures you submit should be the same. You must submit a tax return yourself or you will be fined by HMRC.

Ah ok that's good, still not sure why they send my earnings to HMRC though, seems a bit weird lol

citizan_sam

Hi, I just wanted to say how do to all you hard working underprivileged Provident and Greenwoods agents. I’m not an agent myself, never have been, it was the building trade for me, all my working life, but I’ve been reading the posts on this site and just wanted to chip in and tell you of my grievance. I’m a pensioner, my old Dad, God rest his soul, fought in the War for this country. Me and my brother were War children, we never knew holidays, never had sweets, grew up on powdered egg and rations, and never saw our Dad for years on end.

It was a terrible time for us all, I remember the prisoners of War as they drove them through the streets of Birmingham, poor frightened young men with terror and anguish written all over their faces. I was scared to death when I first saw them, I was only a kid.
And we won the War, oh yes, the Yank’s think they won it but it was us Brits that nailed them to the floor in the end. The jerries didn’t ever want to fight us, because they knew they wouldn’t have a hope in hell, and throughout history we’ve always thrashed the !!!!!! off those frogs. We’re made of the stuff that made Great Britton Great, so where’s your fight people, f**k ‘em all, I say.

Anyway to get to the point, I asked my agent for a loan the other day, little sweetheart she is too, fifteen years she’s been calling on me, rain, snow and blazing heat. She’s one of my very best mates, we’ve laughed together over the years and we’ve cried together. She cries all the time these day’s though, she’s not the same girl since those B******s started these fines, walks around with a long face, said she might be evicted from her house because she can’t pay her rent, ‘F**k ‘em’ I said, ‘they don’t deserve you, go and find yourself another job girl’. And she said that because of my age I couldn’t have another loan, she showed me her ledger, ‘Managers authorisation’ it said, ‘this customer is 76’. But I’m as fit as the next man, my old Dad lived till he was 93 and I’ve never missed a payment in my life, but NO, I’m too old to have any more credit. She didn’t know what to do about it so she phoned that pen pushing pansy of a boss in the office who said, “Would you like your Father to be paying more than £30 a week out of his pension”? Well I do what I like, it’s my life, it’s my money, so ‘F**k you’ I shouted across the room. I phoned my old mate from Shopacheck, “no problem at all” he said, well that’s me sorted then.

It’s those f***ing Tories to blame, they always want to keep the working class down, it’s the masses you see there’s more of us than there is of them and they don’t want an uprising, scares them to death just the thought of it, so ‘keep them down’ is their attitude, ‘like dirt under their shoes’. Cut backs, cut backs everywhere you look, not for the top earners though, oh no 8% pay rise for them while the economy shrinks. And what are they at the top of the Provident, corrupt money grabbing Tories that’s what they are treating their workforce like the politicians treat the people of this country. It’s like a police state these days, my neighbour had the bailiffs one day last week, banging on the door at 6am like the Gestapo, frightened his wife half to death knocking and shouting that time in the morning, she’s got a bad heart. Two of them there were, big burley thugs, he’s only a weedy bloke. They threatened him with violence when he refused to let them in so he phoned the police and what did they do, they rolled up at the door pushed him to the floor and had a hefty WPC wobble on top of him and sit on him to pin him down while the Bailiffs raided his flat and ran off with his telly, he had a bump on his head and a bruise on his wrist and from the Police not the bailiffs, well I ask you, we all know the bailiffs are squinty eyed corrupt low life’s who prey on the poor and vulnerable so we don’t expect any better from them but the Police, whatever happened to the Police Charter is what I want to know, a vow to protect the public at all time, ha what a joke, debt collectors for the government is all they are. The way I see it is that Provident use the same bully boy tactics with their agents, well don’t take of them I say, where’s your fight, get some backbone like true Brits, you wouldn’t let them barge into your house and run away with your telly so why let them steal half your hard earned wages, I would take my wages out every week what I’m owed and tell them ‘take me to court then if you want to claw any back, and then we will see how legal this is, ooops did I almost mention our democratic judicial system, those holier than thou, squeaky clean, privately educated pompous Tories who look down on the working class, so F**k ‘em all, just do it, what are they going to do, they can’t sack you all.

The previous bunch were no better either, the two B’s, Blaire and Brown, Thatcherites in disguise, masquerading as warm caring individuals whilst continuing to snatch our rights away right under our noses. It started with that Maggie cow and it was all downhill from there onwards, you can’t even enjoy a rowley with a pint now in your local boozer, and whose fault was that, f***ing Labour, that’s who, I’ll never vote for those traitors ever again, call themselves ‘The working man’s party’, they’re a bloody disgrace. Who was it that didn’t regulate the banks and allowed them to gobble up our pension and benefit money in bank charges, forcing more and more people to take out these high interest loans just to buy the weekly shop, f***ing Labour again.

They’re all in it together if you ask me, Bankers, Politicians, the courts, the Provident bosses, you name them and there they will be, all together, it’s just one big scam by those at the top, they’re all capitalists you see, money accumulating capitalists whilst I’m a socialist, always was, always will be, so all I say is F**K ‘em all.
By the way (aka Peter C) sorry but you’re talking a load of crap mate and you’re a traitor to your own type just like two Jags.

Pathetic

This is a copy of a letter i have sent to all major sharholders, oft, fsa, BBc and many other organisations -


To whom it may concern,
I note from the internet that you are major shareholders of Provident Financial, a company headed by the infamous Peter Crook.
As share prices are rocketing through the roof even during this stressful economic climate I doubt that you are aware of the underlying problems that are rocking the foundations of this company, and will indeed one day bring it to its knees.
I bring this to your attention not for my own benefit but for justice for the thousands of aggrieved self employed agents who are being treated worse than the surfs of the middle ages. I am not an agent myself and therefore have nothing to lose by speaking out against the fascist dictatorship that in recent years has become Provident.
Please visit the web site agentssayno.co.uk for clarification of what I am about to impart.
No doubt you are fully aware of the austere measures implemented by the current UK government in an ill-thought through and failing attempt to pull our country out of recession. The combination of which has plunged many of the lower income people in our society into extreme and insufferable poverty. The misery they endure is intensified by the greed of local councils, utility suppliers and the food industry.
A number of these people are Provident customers, many of whom are struggling to meet their contractual payments; some won’t pay, whilst others simply can’t pay. This is not the fault of the agents who on a daily basis risk life and limb when attempting to collect their payments.
Whilst I do realise that Provident are a company dependent upon a strong customer base there is no excuse for targeting these vulnerable people with excessive marketing material, followed up by telesales at both branch and head office level. Provident do not appear to be satisfied until they have secured at least a third of a households income and even then the offers of credit continue. This is not collectable revenue as an above average amount of these customers will become non-payers and write offs. Therefore any projected profits that are generated from these irresponsible sales are false accounting. Agents are then forced to sell to these customers even though they know that the customer cannot afford the repayments. If they refuse then section managers see to it that the credit is issued over their heads. Agents are told that they must reach the unrealistic sales targets that they are given every week and they must recruit at least eight new customers a month. Should they fail to do this then they are threatened with the termination of their agency. In addition to this at what has now become a weekly interrogation in the office agents are required to search through their books for sales and fill in paper work detailing the customers that they are going to target to have loans. Office staff then phone these people to ensure that the agent has carried out the task. Agents are also required to hand out leaflets where customers may recommend a friend; again this is followed up by an office worker. Woe betides any agent who fails to deliver and any section manager who is associated with that particular agent as he or she will find themselves signing on for work at the local job centre. After and often against the agents better judgement when the customer has been issued with the loan the agent then has his/her integrity questioned by overzealous security personnel, throwing leading questions at unsuspecting customers, such as did the agent sign the loan agreement inside the house or was the deal done on a park bench or in the back seat of the car on the drive etc etc. Security are delighted should human error be detected and the agent faces instant dismissal. Prior to this office staff who are told that they must look for errors in contracts and must find a certain percentage every week or face losing their jobs fabricate errors that do not exist in order to cover their own backs, this has resulted in the office staff and the agents being at loggerheads with each other.
To progress to the point of this letter, on a daily basis agents meet with all manner of obstacles that may prevent them from collecting the payments due, they have to work long and unsociable hours in all weathers, they face gangs of drug dealers, snarling dogs and would be muggers, they are open to abuse from irate customers who are sick to death of being chased for a payment that they can ill afford to pay and they are constantly harassed by management. A number of customers who fall by the wayside seek help from establishments such as the Citizens Advice Bureau or turn to debt consolidation companies; others ignore visits to their homes and phone calls, some move home or are serving custodial sentences after turning to crime to feed their families and many are on reduced payment terms.
Sadly higher management cannot and will not accept that it is they who are responsible for over committing the customers, and have shifted the blame onto the agents who are fined should they fail to collect the required weekly amount. How they reach this conclusion is a phenomenon as common sense dictates that 11,000 agents from all over the UK cannot be held accountable for the level of non-payers and the bad debt charge it creates, concerns of this level can only be attributed to the failings of higher management.
For over a year now on a weekly basis agents have been issued with a ‘bad debt sheet’, which management refer to as ‘pot movement charts’. To agents these charts can only be viewed as potential fines that are costing them money week after week. The charts reflect the stage of arrears each customer has slid into and demands a payment sufficient to maintain the level and thus prevent the customer sliding further. More often than not the customer cannot pay the required amount and subsequently the agent is fined, £ 5, £10 or £15 for that particular customer. Taking into consideration that before the fines most agents earned a mere £10,000 to £15,000 a year the fines have had devastating consequences. Many agents have seen their wages slashed in half by this evil and unnecessary onslaught, some weeks the fines are so severe that agents have no wages at all, and occasionally agents have even owed the company money after working all week at a cost to themselves as no fuel allowance is offered. This level of income is comparable to the sweatshop workers in China and Pakistan. In a pathetic attempt to cover up this deceit the hierarchy claim that the fines are recoverable should the agent collect an ever higher amount of money off the customer although everyone knows that this is rarely achievable and is just a ploy to placate agents while their wages are being stolen from them in order to accumulate more wealth for the company and its shareholders.
Agents have rent and bills to pay, families to feed, and vehicles to run and this is not achievable on the pittance paid, this is not achievable on zero wages and it is certainly not achievable when agents owe the company money for the honour of working for them. Should agents complain they are made examples of and sacked, managers who have had their freedom of speech taken from them alike. Anyone who leaves without first securing another job will be refused benefits and therefore many agents have been backed into a corner.
It is rumoured throughout the company that these tactics were implemented in order to raise the share prices to the highest level possible for the benefit of the directors of this company who will then sell their shares making massive profits before the company crashes to the ground. Should this be the case the scandal will be greater than the Rover scandal of 2005.
Already the rot has set in as the company has lost at least 20% of its customer base and has never experienced a bad debt problem on this scale. Agents are leaving all over the country, some of their own free will as they have found better paid minimum wage employment and others have been shown the door as their agencies are running at a loss, in fact entire sections are now found to be running at a loss, section managers are facing disciplinary hearings and dismissal. As a direct result of the fines agencies are being left uncollected, branches are being forced to merge and a number of Managers are off work with stress related illnesses. Higher management are panicking, the rumbles of which can be felt all the way down the ranks to the peasant agents.
The London Stock Exchange has been made aware of these concerns as have the F.S.A. and all other major governing bodies. The company is under scrutiny by the Daily Mirror newspaper and is under investigation by the B.B.C. who are to screen a television programme later this month.
Peter Crook, Andrew Fisher and Chris Gillespy should be held accountable for this, they should be relieved of their duties and stripped of their shares and the company should be forced to pay back the wages stolen from its agents and pay them compensation for their pain and suffering.
I trust that you will pay heed to this warning and that you are not tarred with the same brush as these despicable people and if you are and this falls upon deaf ears then may the Lord forgive your sins.

Yours faithfully

R Jones

20yrs_agent

well said pathetic ,hope this will upset them like theyve upset us agents , can you post this letter on agents say no

Pathetic

Hi somebody has kindly posted it on agents say no on my behalf, sadly the idiot who calls himself - who cares (aka Peter C) seems to think every body is else is wrong for writing stuff on these sites as we are all wrong and he is right - the whole world is against him :rotfl: what a plonker - he needs to get in the real world and stop living off him mummy and daddy :rotfl:

Downandoutandintears

I too have tried to copy and paste on the agentssayno site but it won't allow me to do it so I thought that I would come on here and do it and hopfully someone who is more capable than I am will be able to drag it across.
I just wanted to say what a mess my life has become, and all of it because Iworked for Greenwoods. I am sharing this despair with you all now, not forsympathy but as a warning to you all to BREAK FREE before the same fate befallsyou as it has me. For twelve years I was a loyal agent for this company, doingmy best for them and the customers whilst earning a reasonable living along theway. I hit every target; I flew through every campaign and came in with no-morethan 38% misses every week. I enjoyed mywork, made dozens of new friends and had a social life on a scale that I hadnever experienced before. All was well until Crookie and his band of BLOODSUCKING BROTHERS jumped aboard and tipped the ship upside-down. The demisebegan with one change after another, the pressure grew and grew, customers,targets, and bad debt began to ring in my ears. A new ‘YES MAN’ manager arrivedat my branch and as time passed by the ever growing demands for sales andthreats of dismissal should these demands not be met began to disturb me,keeping me awake at night and giving me headaches in the day. The phone neverstopped ringing, weekends and days off included where it was one manager oranother pestering about sales, customers or the bad debt. Then followed thecompliance error fines and the compliance meetings accompanied by more threatsof losing my job. I began to feel asthough I was being victimized for refusing to over commit my customers as mycompliance errors were no-where near as bad as a couple of other agents in mysection. The manager and I had a couple of spats and I was told to either shapeup with the errors that he said were 33% non-compliant or leave my bag and go.I phoned head office to complain and was told that I was 93% compliant;therefore he was lying through his teeth. I considered bringing a case aboutbullying in the workplace but was advised that as a self employed worker I hadno rights. Around that time other agents also began to suffer in a similar wayand everyone was walking around with long faces. Soon after security turned up unannouncedat my flat and demanded to check my float, they went to the homes of otheragents also and then later in the week they stopped me on the round and told meto drive home so that they could check it again. They held me up by two hourswhile they added up the book, checked the loans and counted the cash. I knewthat the manager disliked me and that he was working hand in glove with thedespised members of security and the pompous compliance manager, each and everyone of them conspiring against me, and of course the more nervous I becameabout losing my job the more errors I made and everywhere I went I could feelhis eyes burning a hole in my back. Shortly after this they introduced thefines and after issuing to the customers, under duress I might add with themanager screaming down my throat that I either stitch my customers up with 81week terms and £70 + weekly rates or leave my bag and go home, I saw my incomeslashed in half. My finances quickly deteriorated and I couldn’t manage week toweek, this led to me taking loans out with the company to pay bills that I hadfallen behind with, but this was no solution as I then had not only half theincome but the loans to pay also. As agents are not allowed to be in arrears Ihad to pay the loans every week, this resulted in me taking out more loansagain and before long I had a rate that was half my earnings. As they had to bepaid I fell behind with the rent and couldn’t afford to run the car. The onlyoption I could see at that time was to obtain more loans from other companies;again this was only a temporary fix and before I knew it almost all of myincome was being gobbled up with loan repayments. I felt as though I must paythese loans also to prevent my name being tarnished around the town as whatcould be worse than one agent not paying another. It soon reached the pointwhere I had no money for rent, fuel or food but as my credit score was stillgood I managed to obtain a number of store cards and credit cards, these keptme afloat for a number of months but once I had spent up and couldn’t make therepayments I was back to square one. In order to save on fuel so that I couldpay the Greenwoods loans and something towards my other debts I cut my hoursdown and began to collect only the calls that I knew would pay me thinking thatthere was little point in chasing the bad debt to save on the fines as theextra cost of the fuel wasn’t worth it. This resulted in even more fines but bythis time I had totally lost heart and didn’t feel that the job was worth evengetting out of bed for. I couldn’t pay the tax and insurance on my car and itwas seized and taken away, the cost to retrieve it was £200 going up by £50 aday so it went to scrap leaving me with no transport. After which I had to domy round by bus and on foot but still my finances didn’t improve, I lost myflat and moved into a caravan in the garden of a friend and my unpaid debtsspiralled totally out of control to the tune of £8,000. My nerves were inshreds, I was prescribed anti depressants; I began to suffer from migraine,palpitations and I.B.S. The straw that finally broke the camel’s back was theweek where I actually owed them money, I had collected £2,100 but had no wagesdue to me, and to add insult to injury the manager then told me that I musttake £40 into the office to prevent a shortfall on my agency. I looked outthrough the window at the fields beyond and thought, ‘WHAT THE HELL AM I DOINGHERE’, and I walked. Two weeks later security turned up at the caravan and toldme that as I had left I must not have any contact in any way whatsoever with myex-customers and that they would be checking to make sure that I didn’t, theyalso said that they wanted the £40 that I owed the company and a further £62 tocover shorts that had been found after the audit on my books but I checked thebooks on a regular basis and I wasn’t aware of any shorts. I didn’t have any moneyto give them as I was still waiting for my first job seekers payment so theysaid that they would return the following week and every week after that ifneed be. I contacted the C.A.B. who are now trying to sort everything out forme including the money that Greenwoods say that I owe them. I lost myconfidence and can’t work and my Dr sent me for counselling for my nerves. Thecounsellor was appalled when I told her what had happened and only throughtalking with her do I realise just what it is that they are doing. As sheexplained their Nazi bully boy tactics are a form of BRAINWASHING designed tounnerve the agents and make them conform and it’s effective to the point that evenwhen they have found the strength to walk away from the dictatorship that hasgradually crept into their psyche it is still there buried deep into their soulcontrolling their every waking thought. It’s going to be a long time before mymind is free of them, this I know as the sleepless nights remain but every newdawn is one step away from their grasp and even though they have reduced me tothis shrivelling, paranoid, homeless, pot-less wreck with no future in sight I’mso glad to be gone and I urge you all to leave before it’s too late for youalso.
I wish you all a happy and prosperious new year but please leave the sinking ship and make your own luck elsewhere.

demoralised

I see the cyber bullies have got to agentssayno again, management must be really worried to attack it again, maybe it was the page dedicated to share holders that worried them. If any one finds a way around their latest block please post here, and in the meantime post on this site or the daily mirror blogs, they can't block them.

wewillwinintheend

Hopefully the administrator can bring the site back up again within the next few weeks.The site was starting to get really juicy with lots of insight in to the vanquis temporaraly proping up the company and making shares rocket.It was shocking reading but obviously very true, for now lets hope the agents can come here and expose what is happening at the core of the business.