Life after Albany - is there a better option than Von Essen?

Like many of you I need to set up a new contract to get payed for work going forward. I have mixed feelings about immediately signing up with Von Essen who I know very little about. They called me and offered to sign a contract immediately on same terms as Albany but I haven't committed yet. One thing that was odd was their initial suggestion that they withhold my french taxes and social charges from my pay each month. They dropped this if I agree to sign a waiver stating that I pay directly into the various french authorities (which I do). With the current mess in Mirasol/Albany, I'm certainly not going to be leaving any money in a management company for any longer than I have to.

Has anyone here got experience/opinions of Von Essen or suggestions of a decent alternative that should be considered?

Hi,

I understoof from Martin Glick (owner of Albanies) that they get a fee when people are taking over from von Essen. At teh same time I woudl do my own due diligence with going with Von Essen, especially when recommended by Albany....When talking last week to the SA office; they themselves recommended to NOT go with them. A number of other comapnies are out there; amogst others CXC and ITECS. Again no recommendations....but given the mess we are in right now; do your homework!

advice :

if you in Germany forget all the management companies and simply register yourself as a freelancer/freiberufler.
This is the simplest way operate. You simply get a tax number from the tax office /financeamt and you raise your
own invoices to your agency. It could not be more simple and more transparent : invoice on the one hand
bank account statement showing the invoiced income on the other. This will save you a lot of headaches and
sleepless nights in the future..i know :-)

Hurting this is what I am doing, how does the VAT work in Germany?

AMUK going into administration has highlighted to me the risk of having an umbrella company as an intermediary in my payment chain.

I decided not to take the Von Essen option and have now set myself up as a Ltd company. Invoices are now paid directly into my business bank account.

Based on the figures presented and the fact that my contract appears to be IR35 'friendly' it looks like my percentage retention should also improve.

Are contracts now void since Albany is neither responding to contract cancellations nor providing documentation explaining why they are not paying?

If not, how can one cancel a contract with a firm that does not respond to email or telephone calls?

I believe it safe to say, that at this point... IF Albany would even try to make a problem about anyone canceling, that would simply be a joke (both legally and logically).

And if anyone is taken to court over it... I would imagine case wouldn't have any ground to stand on.

I, for example, will not pay Albany another pound until I see my December invoice. And I would say that anyone can simply show the "administration" letter to your company to change their umbrella company information. Plus I don't know about you but my Albany contracts lets me cancel anytime.

This is obviously not a goog business when the going gets tough. I think I would ditch the unbrella's and set up on your own !

Also there is an update on Albany on this link.


http://www.lawspeed.com/press/recruitment_consultancies/umbrella_company_problems.aspx

Romek - thanks. I agree that logically speaking it would be ridiculous for them to cause a problem in that regard. However, strange things happen and I want to make sure.


All -- forget about Umbrella companies and Von Essen. Wherever possible, do not let another company have power to control when and if you get paid for your work.

I started looking at an Umbrella company that would do weekly payments. That way I limit my risks. The issue with LTDs is that if something happens and you get called to explain yourself... your basically on your own. While when going with an Umbrella company you can use them as your representation.

Thought i'd give some feedback on my Von Essen experience so far - I moved to Von Essen 3 weeks ago in the novation exercise.

They seem ok - they are invoicing my agency a day or so after they recieve my timesheets, they are paying me weekly and sending out payslips - I have now received my first pay since Albany management UK last paid me in mid December.

Thanks Elaine, if anybody else has any feedback from Von Essen it would be most welcome.

My worry is that Albany were a fantastic company until they went down, I have the greatest sorrow for all of the staff there, I would happily give a reference to all the people that I personally dealt with for a job elsewhere no doubts.

My worry is, how easily it failed and for such a small amount. I have been extremely dissappointed with the communication to us since this happened ( i.e Vague and sparse ) and the fact that they are treating us, their clients, as hostile.

I have lost faith in this whole industry, if lI ose my money myself then I have only myself to blame !

i wouln't risk another intermediary.
some of us have been burned twice - 1st Integra, now Albany.
if i add up the sums i've lost, it exponentially outweighs the benefit.
go direct, pay the man, and spend the rest.

We all make our choices, and on the current evidence mine don't deserve airing - at least not amongst those I would wish well. But still, I'm surprised anyone who's been through this would even consider another intermediary, if there was even the slightest chance of an alternative. The old adage; 'Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me'.

This, for me anyway, has been the mother of all educational wallops. But Lord knows I'd have learnt my lesson just as well had it cost me a few thousand rather than tens of thousands.

I'm really on the fence letting someone sell another umbrella company.

Recruiter, if your intentions are legitimate that's great, but don't be too surprised if we decide to erase all recruiter type posts. We may move to having a section specifically for this though. Just giving you a heads up.

Recruiter,

Our issue is simple... if we start suggesting anyone else, it may seem that we support someone. I think Albany has taught us one very important lesson. No matter how large, and how "safe" a company might look (given Albany's many years in business, size, and numerous memberships -just look at http://www.umbrellasupermarket.com where they continue to be highly rated) We wouldn't want someone to wrongfully think this could not happen again to them.

Yes we are all adults, yes are all professionals, and yes we SHOULD already understand this, but we live in a world where it only takes a few to ruin it for everyone.

As an example I'm not saying which company I'm with now for that very reason. Also this Forum was specifically designed to focus on Albany and Mirasol and we'd like to keep the focus on that as well.

So it's nothing against you personally or against your good intentions. Just letting you know that as this Forum grows, these are the issues we have to deal with.

My post was offering an answer to the thread title. "Is there a better option than Von Essen?", but point taken. I can understand the benefits of focussing solely on Albany etc.

I am going to look into how one might set up an Agency / Umbrella for contractors by contractors. Absolutely cast iron rules backed by Law. No fancy cars, no Yachts, no farms and no conflicts of interest !

Is there any support for something like this ?????

Please don't recommend any agency or umbrella on this site, I have already received junk mail from Corso ??? Stating that they had permission to contact forum members by the Manager ! Vultures. When I responded asking who gave permission I got no response !!!

Here is her email address. If any manager gave her permission please let me know !

michelle@corso-contracting.com

Thanks but no thanks Michelle !!!

In my case, Von essens has been chasing me as well but i never really signed up for them. At least the first two agents of mine left Albany and moved to Von essens without informing me. I just learnt that every 6 months i have a different agent from Albany UK. disgusting it was. i moved now to a new agency/management company which i worked for two years before and never had any problem. they are actually on my msn chat list and they are very well attentive to your concerns. they only pay you once the money is received from client though, but this is the safest way to do it i think. i dont want to expose their name here, but you can PM me if you are interested.

For many of us, job-hunting encourages complacency. Huge effort in securing contracts/extensions and hardly any in extensive DD on the company/agency/brolly we select. We all now know the consequences of that.

But do you really need a brolly? Albany supposedly had international knowledge - which is what I paid for when I ventured abroad. But all the information to set up WITHOUT a brolly, almost anywhere in the world, is available for free from employment organizations, web sites and any number of ex-pat fora.

Is it really necessary to introduce complexity to such a ridiculously simple model?

Might have been greed driven. They got to a certain size and suddenly it wasn't enough. Now they WE paid the ultimate price for their mismanagement.

Of the Von Essen corporate values it lists integrity. One of the Von Essen directors is a member of a group on facebook that is derogatory towards those less fortunate! I have made my choice and its not Von Essen!

Spoke to the Von lot too. All I remember was the sentences ending with 'going forward'. Was a bit too shell-shocked at the time to appreciate the Americanisms but couldn't help but interpret it all as; "Look 'Another Victim', life is too short to dwell on your losses, but going forward...", "We are like Albany but are not like Albany at all, and going forward...".

Just maybe, if they had used their connections to find me a contact in Albany, who could have gotten me a credit note to make a dent in my 'unmentionable' losses, we might have talked...going forward.

Mind you, I do appreciate the link they gave to the Recruiter article. Given Albany's reticence, I'd have hated to have read all about it in The Sun.

Apologies for sounding so negative but is there honestly any life left in management company structures for anyone working in Europe? The tax net is closing in big time on an international scale - the OECD is deadly serious about galloping towards an internationally agreed standard on exchange of information for tax purposes and both onshore AND offshore jurisdictions are implementing TIEAs (tax information exchange treaties) left-right-and-centre.

Surprise, surprise, one of the main focuses of all these agreements is to crack down on tax evasion and in particular any structures which facilitate tax evasion. Is it really too much to wonder, therefore, if Albany's problems have in fact originated with a probing tax authority (probably UK but I know they've been on the radar elsewhere for a while) - they certainly wouldn't be the first MC to run into serious problems as a result of this (along with their consultants) in the past year or 2.

This does leave one wondering about those MCs who are still willing to offer structures which are not 100% compliant. It's extremely easy and very good money for them and the risk is pretty much entirely that of the consultant. When the tax man comes knocking, the MC directors either hide behind the anonymity of their offshore tax shelter (although probably not for much longer) or simply disappear (amazing how many of them are not EU nationals), the company goes into administration and it's the consultant who gets clobbered for enormous amounts of tax + penalties and/or can't claim his money. Most (all?) of the good MCs which actually had any ethics have already shut up shop in Europe (other than for eg 100% legal local payrolls) so what does that say about the Van Essens of this shady world who currently must be be rubbing their hands in glee at the misfortune of the Albany contractors.....