Company withholding payment

[charitynjw]

Re: Company withholding payment

Hi labman & andy2965,

Only my opinion, but the problem would be providing proof of the contract between andy & Yodel which would be acceptable to a court/tribunal.
Maybe a SAR might unearth something. (At least it would give documented indication of Yodel's legal stance)

[charitynjw]

Re: Company withholding payment

Again, only my opinion, but I would imagine if 'friend' claimed for breach of contract, there would be grounds for a counter-claim for damages due to repudiatory breach. (Pretty well bang-to-rights, as an arrest was made). I should have thought that there would be an implied duty of trust, which goes to the root of the contract.

Also, what has happened to the expensive equipment - has it been returned, & if so, a receipt obtained?

[andy2965]

Re: Company withholding payment

Hi thanks for the replies,
I am still in possession of the hand held terminal and i have made Yodel aware that i still have it- the managers reply to this was 'if you still have the hand held terminal why dont you come back and work for us again!!! Five minutes after this call ireceived a call from the operations manager(who had previously ignored all my calls) asking if he could arrange the collection of the terminal. I know that these terminals are worth double the amount of money that i am owed so i cant understand why they dont just pay me and get their terminal back. Frustrating!!!

[labman]

Re: Company withholding payment

Surely if they're arguing you never worked for them, you would not have the hand held scanner. Did you sign for that?

[charitynjw]

Re: Company withholding payment

Hi thanks for the replies,
I am still in possession of the hand held terminal and i have made Yodel aware that i still have it- the managers reply to this was 'if you still have the hand held terminal why dont you come back and work for us again!!! Five minutes after this call ireceived a call from the operations manager(who had previously ignored all my calls) asking if he could arrange the collection of the terminal. I know that these terminals are worth double the amount of money that i am owed so i cant understand why they dont just pay me and get their terminal back. Frustrating!!!

Pity these conversations weren't in writing, or recorded in some way (or were they )
Re the above in red, what arrangement/reply was made by you?

[CleverClogs]

Re: Company withholding payment

Why don't you just sue Yokels?

[labman]

Re: Company withholding payment

Charity - that's exactly what I was hoping to elicit from the OP in my previous post.

[Gorang]

Re: Company withholding payment

If I am not mistaken I don't think the Andy can sue yodels as he was NOT directly employed by them,

From post 4 andy said

His official title was service partner he worked there on a self-employed basis so unfortunately no contract of employment.

So this would mean that yodels was a customer of Andies mate, NOT an employer

also in post 1

I recently did some work for a company called Yodel delivering parcels, the work was arranged by a friend(a current employee (He is NOT an employee if he was self employed as stated in post 4) of yodel) and as such payment for the work was to be made to him (this also indicates the mate was self employed so andy would be employed/contracted by the mates company, NOT yodel) which in turn would be passed on to me. I completed the 2 weeks work with no problems and awaited payment...

I think Andy was directly employed/contracted by his mate, as the mate was self employed that would make Andies mate an "Agency" (suppling labour) by the looks of things

If I am right then if Andy tries to sue yodels then he could be left with a bill for costs I suspect

To me it looks like Andies mate has a company in which he supplies yodels with an invoice for work done, and Andy was working for the mates company, hense why the mate got paid directly from yodels and Andy got paid from his mate

if this is the case then it is the mate that will need to sue yodels and Andy would need to sue the mate

I personaly run a lorry driver agency, now all of my drivers still need to get training from the customer that they are doing the work for, as every company operates differently with different procedures

and if one of my customers bins/sacks/tells my company not to come back, for whatever reason, and they DON'T pay my invoice, it's MY problem, to still pay the drivers wages for that work that they have done to date, NOT the customers

I still have to pay my drivers on time, but then I need to sue the customer for non payment of work already done to get my money

If I can't pay the drivers and they go to the customer for payment, then the customer is just going to tell them to see me for their money as it's got nothing to do with them coz as it stands with the contracts (verbal or written) there are 2 different contracts that do NOT cross over

Customer has a contract with my company to complete the customers work
My company has a seperate contract with the drivers to complete my work

I may have picked up the thread wrong so maybe Labman or Charitynjw could confirm or just tell me to shut up lol

If i am right then I suspect that its the contract between yodels and Andies mate that will need to be looked at in more detail, to see if yodels can with hold the money for work already completed prior to the misconduct, even tho he has been binned for gross miscondiuct ie stealing then I suspect that they CAN'T with hold money for work completed PRIOR the incident


Hope this helps

[labman]

Re: Company withholding payment

I agree with you. I think we are dealing with two separate issues, and they are getting incorrectly merged into one.

Issue one: Can payment be witheld for work already completed satisfactorily? Answer in my opinion - No.

Issue Two: The friend stole a parcel. This is a criminal issue should the company wish to make it one, but has no bearing at all on the first point.

[teaboy2]

Re: Company withholding payment

I have to agree with Gorang above - Without any evidence of a contract between andy and yodels, then it won't stand a chance in court. The only way round this is if andy can get solid proof of a service contract between andy and yodels, which would make yodels andys customer and therefore yodel would be liable to pay andy.

But without the contract then any chances of getting anything out of yodels is zero - And don't even think or holding the handheld to ransom as you will likely be arrested fro blackmail if you did.

To be honest i do suspect you were contracted as a third party by your mate andy, as such it is him that owes you the money.
------------------------------- merged -------------------------------

I agree with you. I think we are dealing with two separate issues, and they are getting incorrectly merged into one.

Issue one: Can payment be witheld for work already completed satisfactorily? Answer in my opinion - No.

Issue Two: The friend stole a parcel. This is a criminal issue should the company wish to make it one, but has no bearing at all on the first point.

Agreed they still have to pay for work done satisfactory prior to the theft. They are under contract to pay monies owed under the contract for work done prior to termination, and the termination did not occur till the theft by andy's mate.

[labman]

Re: Company withholding payment

So technically it's simple. The friend gets paid, then pays Andy.

It's then entirely up to the company, as a totally separate issue, whether they pursue Andy's friend for the theft, or leave things as they are and don't use him anymore.

The only problem for Andy now is convincing his friend to pursue the payment owed. That is an entirely separate issue, and depending on whether or not he wishes to remain friends with this person may well influence any action taken.

[ODC]

Re: Company withholding payment

The OP has a very expensive scanner belonging to Yodel. Why would they give this to someone who was not working for them either directly or indirectly. Im sure they have some written record of issuing it to him, indeed he may have signed for it. I bet if i rang Yodel up and asked for a scanner they would not give me one.

If the OP was to "lose" or "damage' the scanner Im sure Yodel could prove they issued it to him and if they issued it to him then he must be doing work for them

[andy2965]

Re: Company withholding payment

Thanks once again for all the replies,
I'll try to answer all your questions as best i can
I didnt sign anything relating to the terminal when i received it, i was just asked to sign a service agreement- i amtrying to get hold of a copy of this document to see exactly what is contained within it.
When the operations manager asked to collect the terminal i gave him my address for collection but have heard nothing since, i am considering handing the terminal to my friend and making yodel aware of this in an attempt to force yodel to enter into some form of dialogue with my friend-something they have refused to do since the the theft.
I have considered suing my friend if there is no way of proving that i did the work for yodel(which is looking the case) but i dont think i would gain anything from suing him as i know he has no money so i dont know how i would get my money, i presume if he was ordered to pay me it would be in instalments of a few pounds a week?
I am starting to think that my effort would be best spent helping my friend to try and force yodel to pay in order to get my money as soon as possible do you all agree?

[Gorang]

Re: Company withholding payment

I totally agree ODC

When they said no the first time I think they had been looking at it as tho Andy was a direct employee of yodels and had been looking for his name on their computer systems under the employee bit not the 3rd party bit, hense they didn't find him and said NO, but he wasn't an employee and they then realised that he was a 3rd party contractor

Yes Andy would have had to be issued with and trained how to use the scanner, but I suspect they will be a bigger sized company and that this falls under different departments, so I suspect when Andy phoned them, it was NOT in this departments that yodels had been looking for him, right up until Andy told them he still has the scanner

I seriously suspect that if andy does NOT return the scanner to yodels then they can and would get the police to get him charged with theft, for not returning it when they have asked

As that would be like one of my drivers NOT returning my customers lorry once the work was completed

The OP has a very expensive scanner belonging to Yodel. Why would they give this to someone who was not working for them either directly or indirectly. Im sure they have some written record of issuing it to him, indeed he may have signed for it. I bet if i rang Yodel up and asked for a scanner they would not give me one.

If the OP was to "lose" or "damage' the scanner Im sure Yodel could prove they issued it to him and if they issued it to him then he must be doing work for them

[Gorang]

Re: Company withholding payment

Thanks once again for all the replies,
I'll try to answer all your questions as best i can
I didnt sign anything relating to the terminal when i received it, i was just asked to sign a service agreement- i amtrying to get hold of a copy of this document to see exactly what is contained within it.I suspect this will be a training document of some kind, ie you sign to say you are trained to carry out the work
When the operations manager asked to collect the terminal i gave him my address for collection but have heard nothing since, Personally I would drop it off to yodels and make them sign sumit to say you have dropped it off and it is in good working order, as I doubt you will have proof you have told them where to pick it up.
Also they will prob say, you took it away so you take it back

i am considering handing the terminal to my friend and making yodel aware of this in an attempt to force yodel to enter into some form of dialogue with my friend-something they have refused to do since the the theft. If you do this then yodel could have you charged with theft as you were the one they gave it too, and I doubt very much that you will force them into anything unless it is via a court
I have considered suing my friend if there is no way of proving that i did the work for yodel(which is looking the case) but i dont think i would gain anything from suing him as i know he has no money so i dont know how i would get my money, i presume if he was ordered to pay me it would be in instalments of a few pounds a week? Your right here as it would only put a huge strain on your friendship and you would prob get nothing at the end of it as your friend does not have the money to pay you

I am starting to think that my effort would be best spent helping my friend to try and force yodel to pay in order to get my money as soon as possible do you all agree? 100% agree, I personally think, along with handing back the treminal to yodel so they can't come after you for it, this would be the best way forward as i suspect that yodels are breaching their contract with your friend by not paying for work completed PRIOR to the incident

Hope this helps for now