No payment but agency have taken commission

jimmylad007

Hi. Apologies if I’m not in the right place here as I’m not technically employed, but am self employed. Please move this thread if there’s a better place.

I get work via a company that acts as an agency taking bookings from customers who want jobs doing. The customer pays at the time of booking, jobs get assigned to me, I carry out the work and provide the evidence, and then receive the payment, less the cut that the agency takes for arranging it. This are the terms that I agreed to when I joined them.

However I have been left out of pocket for several weeks now as they decided to do things differently. A customer (a company rather than uan individual in this case) needed several jobs doing in various locations, all of which I carried out. However unbeknown to me at the time, the agency had agreed to accept a single payment following the completion of all jobs, rather than taking the payment at the time of booking as they usually would. However the company failed to pay as promised. 

What I don’t find fair is that the agency has still taken their cut for those jobs out of my payments for other jobs, so not only have I not received anything for the work that I have carried out, I have essentially paid for the privilege of doing it!

I’ve spoken to the agency on multiple occasions but the response is always along the lines of “we’ve reminded them that the payment is overdue / they’ve promised to pay by this date”, but said date keeps coming and going without any payment being received. I’ve also spoken to the company who ordered the work directly, but their response was that they can’t discuss it with me as their contract is with the agency.

Im considering the small claims procedure here, but do I claim against the agency or the company?

Thanks

Savvy_Sue

Who is your contract with, the agency or the company? Who contacts you to say "can you do this for us?"

What does your contract say about payment and late payment?

I think if you answer those questions, you'll have your answer. 

DCFC79

From what you have posted your contract is with the agency so the claim will be against them but it needs to be clarified.

I wonder if the company (not the agency) have the funds to pay you, woulduld explain the delaying tactics.