Tweet
Hello Guys,
I’m not sure if this query is in the right thread so please feel free, if required, to move to an appropriate one. I have changed the names of the parties involved.
In September 2008, I was invited to attend a meeting with my associate Ms X, to meet her contact about doing some work. We were commissioned by “T8K” to do an evaluation report based on free government funded training offered to East London businesses.
T8k are an accredited £multi-million international training and innovative company who regularly win government bids. They won their bid from a government agency, contract award nearly £680k. My client is “Mr Y“, Director of “T8K” and lead delivery partner of the other training companies who were involved in the project.
The report fee was £3k which was offered by Mr Y. No contracts/agreements were ever signed by me or offered by T8k as all of the work was conducted in good faith and was accepted by T8k, initially in good faith.
Myself and Ms X were meant to work on the project jointly. My role doing the research including liaising with relevant parties, interviewing, phone calls and collation. Ms X putting the information together in a report format and presenting it to T8k. The £3k fee would be split between us with the report submission date Thursday 30th October 2008.
After the first meeting ended, Ms X informed me that she did not wish to liaise directly with Mr Y as she didn’t want any contact with him. I saw this as unusual as she still wanted his money. I trusted her as we’d had previously worked together with no problems.
From this, Ms X decided that I should have full and main contact with Mr Y. I didn’t want to let them both down, so I agreed to this. I then started to receive contact details of all parties involved in the project from Ms X, Mr Y and other T8K staff. I also received toolkits, vital statistical information (which I received after the report deadline from T8k) to which I had to start on and complete on my own.
Some of the information was received late and I had to chase up contacts to arrange the phone interviews with them.
Mr Y saw that I was doing the work alone and kept asking me why Ms X was not supporting me. I didn’t want to tell him the truth as I thought that this would jeopardise the work and that we wouldn’t be paid.
I told him I was committed to completing this as long as I got his feedback on my progress.
In a conversation we had, he asked me if I had an arrangement with Ms X about the fee. I said Yes. Just as I was about to tell him the details, he said he didn’t want to know and that he would pay the money to me directly and that I should then share it with Ms X. I wanted to disagree but he insisted as he said that I was doing all of the work with no help.
I wasn’t sure how Ms X would take this, but I let her know the change in the payment terms straight away. She didn’t seem bothered about it, not to my face anyway. If there were any rumblings between them, I didn’t want to get involved. I just wanted to uphold my commitment to finish the work to the best of my abilities and submit it.
With no support from Ms X, I went to two sources for help. One was someone who was doing her own very similar report to the same gov agency. Mr Y wanted me to get the report from her and copy it. I refused to do so and told him this.
.
My other contact was a lifesaver and went through my report page by page telling me what amendments were needed, how they should be done, etc.
Mr Y was getting worried and in November 2008 he called a meeting between myself, Ms X and also brought in his work colleague who was a bid writer (who also ran his own consultancy). Mr Y wanted him to rewrite the whole report, present it to the gov agency (T8K’s client) and credit my name on the report.
Again, in this meeting the report’s amendments were not discussed. Even the bid writer queried the reason for this. Mr Y just wanted to meet there to have a few drinks and every meeting we had was held at the bar in that restaurant even though I suggested we meet elsewhere.
Ms X could see the change in Mr Y’s behaviour towards me was becoming negative and that was the only time she showed any concern to me.
Mr Y also wanted me to pay for his colleague to do this work from my own pocket. I declined this offer as it sounded fraudulent. I told him I would complete it as I had originally been commissioned to do so.
From that happened, I sensed that Mr Y wanted to clawback the money that he originally offered me and/or I end up doing the work for free.
When I completed the work (the second time), I didn’t have anyone to show it to and the second deadline was near. I decided to send it direct to the client as at least then it would be in their hands and I hoped I would get the feedback I’d been asking for from Mr Y since October 2008.
On the 19th December 2008, the gov agency did go over the report and gave a very direct constructive feedback. It was exactly what I need to see that was totally shortcoming from Mr Y.
However this feedback was sent to Mr Y and it was in his reply to his client that he stated underpaying me or not paying me at all. He never mentioned this to me directly. I only saw this information when he forwarded to me a chain of emails and he stating that I had breached my contract that I must never directly contact the client again and that I had damaged his reputation with the client.
All of this came about because he did not want to give feedback on my report when I continually asked him for it.
Mr Y’s attitude towards me changed and he became extremely aggressive with me for doing this. He was behind with reaching his financial targets and was only worried about the business’s reputation. His behaviour and comments were demeaning and slanderous and I believe he may even have contravened his own Equal Opportunities policy that he submitted in his gov bid.
Two amendments to the report were conducted (originally 30th October 2008, December 2008 and Wednesday 28th January 2009) and each time, in his opinion he stated it was not up to standard and yet he did not want to say exactly how it could be improved.
I never received any help or support from Ms X and yet when the correspondence was conducted between myself and Mr Y, she was either cc’d in emails or had the copy letters sent to her. She knew and could see exactly what was going on and never once helped or even offered to help me.
The feedback from the gov agency had motivated me to work on and improve the report even more, and I did this using it my guideline.
Upon seeing the last amendment sent Wednesday 28th Jan 2009, Mr Y said that the improvement was significant.
He wanted a meeting between us and at our last meeting on Thursday 29th January 2009, he took great delight in showing me the areas for improvement and then changed his mind about my doing any further work.
He said he wanted to put a line under it all, that he would only pay me £500.00 non-negotiable and that I must change the wording of the invoice and send it through to his office for payment.
It was the first time he had gone through it like that since my requests in October 2008.
Again, the meeting was held at the same restaurant (studio based near Ms X’s office) and the client ordered drinks for the both us (beer for him and tea for me) that came to £10.30 that I ended up paying as he walked out without settling the bill. I have the receipt.
To summarise, the situation has progressed to the point where:
He spouts on about reputation and yet wants to take advantage of the fact that I am a micro-business (sole trader).
To top it off I have only been offered £500.00 payment for at least three months work where the original offer is £3,000.00. He also wanted me to submit the amended price as Training Research Report and not as a Final Evaluation Report.
Mr Y is only now mentioning to pay £500.00 as a “goodwill gesture” in his last letter (August 2009) as he can see that I am serious about recovering the full fee.
I believe that I have to take this to the small claims court. I have paperwork to support my claim and just want some justice/guidance with this.
At times I really feel sickened just thinking about this and just want to accept the reduced fee. However, I know that that is exactly what Mr Y wants and by constantly making negative comments he hopes that it will chip away at my self-esteem and that I'll slide to the floor in a heap.
Another side of me says "Girl, drag him to the 'cleaners' and leave him lying there naked!!"
Guys, can you help me at all with this situation?
Regards,
AdvS1.
I’m not sure if this query is in the right thread so please feel free, if required, to move to an appropriate one. I have changed the names of the parties involved.
In September 2008, I was invited to attend a meeting with my associate Ms X, to meet her contact about doing some work. We were commissioned by “T8K” to do an evaluation report based on free government funded training offered to East London businesses.
T8k are an accredited £multi-million international training and innovative company who regularly win government bids. They won their bid from a government agency, contract award nearly £680k. My client is “Mr Y“, Director of “T8K” and lead delivery partner of the other training companies who were involved in the project.
The report fee was £3k which was offered by Mr Y. No contracts/agreements were ever signed by me or offered by T8k as all of the work was conducted in good faith and was accepted by T8k, initially in good faith.
Myself and Ms X were meant to work on the project jointly. My role doing the research including liaising with relevant parties, interviewing, phone calls and collation. Ms X putting the information together in a report format and presenting it to T8k. The £3k fee would be split between us with the report submission date Thursday 30th October 2008.
After the first meeting ended, Ms X informed me that she did not wish to liaise directly with Mr Y as she didn’t want any contact with him. I saw this as unusual as she still wanted his money. I trusted her as we’d had previously worked together with no problems.
From this, Ms X decided that I should have full and main contact with Mr Y. I didn’t want to let them both down, so I agreed to this. I then started to receive contact details of all parties involved in the project from Ms X, Mr Y and other T8K staff. I also received toolkits, vital statistical information (which I received after the report deadline from T8k) to which I had to start on and complete on my own.
Some of the information was received late and I had to chase up contacts to arrange the phone interviews with them.
Mr Y saw that I was doing the work alone and kept asking me why Ms X was not supporting me. I didn’t want to tell him the truth as I thought that this would jeopardise the work and that we wouldn’t be paid.
I told him I was committed to completing this as long as I got his feedback on my progress.
In a conversation we had, he asked me if I had an arrangement with Ms X about the fee. I said Yes. Just as I was about to tell him the details, he said he didn’t want to know and that he would pay the money to me directly and that I should then share it with Ms X. I wanted to disagree but he insisted as he said that I was doing all of the work with no help.
I wasn’t sure how Ms X would take this, but I let her know the change in the payment terms straight away. She didn’t seem bothered about it, not to my face anyway. If there were any rumblings between them, I didn’t want to get involved. I just wanted to uphold my commitment to finish the work to the best of my abilities and submit it.
With no support from Ms X, I went to two sources for help. One was someone who was doing her own very similar report to the same gov agency. Mr Y wanted me to get the report from her and copy it. I refused to do so and told him this.
.
My other contact was a lifesaver and went through my report page by page telling me what amendments were needed, how they should be done, etc.
Mr Y was getting worried and in November 2008 he called a meeting between myself, Ms X and also brought in his work colleague who was a bid writer (who also ran his own consultancy). Mr Y wanted him to rewrite the whole report, present it to the gov agency (T8K’s client) and credit my name on the report.
Again, in this meeting the report’s amendments were not discussed. Even the bid writer queried the reason for this. Mr Y just wanted to meet there to have a few drinks and every meeting we had was held at the bar in that restaurant even though I suggested we meet elsewhere.
Ms X could see the change in Mr Y’s behaviour towards me was becoming negative and that was the only time she showed any concern to me.
Mr Y also wanted me to pay for his colleague to do this work from my own pocket. I declined this offer as it sounded fraudulent. I told him I would complete it as I had originally been commissioned to do so.
From that happened, I sensed that Mr Y wanted to clawback the money that he originally offered me and/or I end up doing the work for free.
When I completed the work (the second time), I didn’t have anyone to show it to and the second deadline was near. I decided to send it direct to the client as at least then it would be in their hands and I hoped I would get the feedback I’d been asking for from Mr Y since October 2008.
On the 19th December 2008, the gov agency did go over the report and gave a very direct constructive feedback. It was exactly what I need to see that was totally shortcoming from Mr Y.
However this feedback was sent to Mr Y and it was in his reply to his client that he stated underpaying me or not paying me at all. He never mentioned this to me directly. I only saw this information when he forwarded to me a chain of emails and he stating that I had breached my contract that I must never directly contact the client again and that I had damaged his reputation with the client.
All of this came about because he did not want to give feedback on my report when I continually asked him for it.
Mr Y’s attitude towards me changed and he became extremely aggressive with me for doing this. He was behind with reaching his financial targets and was only worried about the business’s reputation. His behaviour and comments were demeaning and slanderous and I believe he may even have contravened his own Equal Opportunities policy that he submitted in his gov bid.
Two amendments to the report were conducted (originally 30th October 2008, December 2008 and Wednesday 28th January 2009) and each time, in his opinion he stated it was not up to standard and yet he did not want to say exactly how it could be improved.
I never received any help or support from Ms X and yet when the correspondence was conducted between myself and Mr Y, she was either cc’d in emails or had the copy letters sent to her. She knew and could see exactly what was going on and never once helped or even offered to help me.
The feedback from the gov agency had motivated me to work on and improve the report even more, and I did this using it my guideline.
Upon seeing the last amendment sent Wednesday 28th Jan 2009, Mr Y said that the improvement was significant.
He wanted a meeting between us and at our last meeting on Thursday 29th January 2009, he took great delight in showing me the areas for improvement and then changed his mind about my doing any further work.
He said he wanted to put a line under it all, that he would only pay me £500.00 non-negotiable and that I must change the wording of the invoice and send it through to his office for payment.
It was the first time he had gone through it like that since my requests in October 2008.
Again, the meeting was held at the same restaurant (studio based near Ms X’s office) and the client ordered drinks for the both us (beer for him and tea for me) that came to £10.30 that I ended up paying as he walked out without settling the bill. I have the receipt.
To summarise, the situation has progressed to the point where:
- Quote/Invoice £3k Thursday 30th October 2008 is still outstanding as at today‘s date.
- I have proof in an email hardcopy dated December 2008, Mr Y stated to his client (gov agency) that he would only pay me a small amount or not pay me at all upon completing the report.
- Continual requests for payment are being ignored which included reminder letter, LBA, involvement of a DCA and an online legal help/Solicitor’s intervention - to no avail.
- Continual requests for feedback on the report are not forthcoming with Mr Y sidestepping the requests.
- Slanderous comments being made to me where Mr Y keeps stating that I have damaged the reputation of his business.
- Mr Y wants me to still complete the report from scratch but does not want to pay for the work I have done.
- My report is still with Mr Y.
He spouts on about reputation and yet wants to take advantage of the fact that I am a micro-business (sole trader).
To top it off I have only been offered £500.00 payment for at least three months work where the original offer is £3,000.00. He also wanted me to submit the amended price as Training Research Report and not as a Final Evaluation Report.
Mr Y is only now mentioning to pay £500.00 as a “goodwill gesture” in his last letter (August 2009) as he can see that I am serious about recovering the full fee.
I believe that I have to take this to the small claims court. I have paperwork to support my claim and just want some justice/guidance with this.
At times I really feel sickened just thinking about this and just want to accept the reduced fee. However, I know that that is exactly what Mr Y wants and by constantly making negative comments he hopes that it will chip away at my self-esteem and that I'll slide to the floor in a heap.
Another side of me says "Girl, drag him to the 'cleaners' and leave him lying there naked!!"
Guys, can you help me at all with this situation?
Regards,
AdvS1.
same basis as other one, unpaid invoice.
Comment