Poor Agency Rates! (Name & Shame Section!)

[senior]

From: [name removed by admin]@selectoilandgas.com
To:
Subject: RE: Percentage cuts on ROV workers.
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2014 13:49:33 +0100

Hi,

We have a lots of guys on different projects, now. Our margin isn’t high at all on any of theses guys
. Happy to always disclose our margins to our contractors if required, we always try to run everything extremely transparent.

Why not disclose your cut on here?, that goes to all agencies………
what do you have to lose????????????????????

[James McLauchlan]

Blimey! This thread has the potential to break the 10,000 views milestone! :tup:

Not been too many of those produced in such short order. Last week the site went down due to high server loads being imposed from ROVworld.com. Turns out we are No.1 on the shared hosting server for raw traffic.

Something else I have personally noticed of late is there appears to be more activity in the forum after a bit of a lull.

[James McLauchlan]

Orion Engineering (Agency – UK based) have just advised that it is their ‘policy’ not to pay VAT on expenses. I’m chasing it up as this is the first time I have ever experienced that!

This makes no sense whatsoever. I am sure they only informed you of this after you submitted the expenses right?

Thanks for the warning.

Agencies like that should not be allowed to operate.

Yes it did happen after the event. Although it seems they have been doing this for some time (in the UK), it’s just that I haven’t been working through them for long. Many on here might not have heard of Orion (from an ROV perspective) but they are a large well established global employment agency. Not going to disappear in a hurry that’s for sure.

For many years in this industry I’ve always had expenses paid in full. There was never any discussion about sales tax being deducted!

Once I get better feedback I’ll respond.

I promised to respond once this was resolved so here goes…

This has now been resolved by running my company invoices through their Middle East office, instead of the UK, which I’m fine with. The problem has gone away, invoices and expenses paid in full. Personally I don’t care how my Canadian (BC) Incorporated company is paid as long as it is paid, and in full!

[James McLauchlan]

You’ll note that the personal email address in a post above was edited out…

From the very first post in this thread:

Strict rules:

• Naming of company = OK (post will remain live)
• Naming of individual persons = NOT OK (such posts will be deleted/edited by admin)

[Cabledog]

Only worked via 1 agency, only good things to say about them……however, we all get emails from about 300 agencies, or maybe it just feels like that sometimes, but lets go back to IVoffshore……….No idea how many people they have in the office, but I seem to get an email from each and every one of them every day about the same job…….usually ones that have no relevance to me AT ALL. For instance, I have never worked on a Tiger, so I will not supervise on one….(some will, I won’t) Anyway, email format is the same old cobblers…tell me what you will work for, send me everything you have blah blah….

I guess reading a CV is a little much to ask for these days, who cares if you don’t know the system or have experience on whatever type of job, right….after all it is just about bums on seats….you don’t need to be capable of doing the job in THIS industry…do you !!!

IV are not the only one’s operating like this either….just in case nobody noticed 😯 😯 😯 😯 🙄 🙄 :

[K2]

Senior

The trust has gone. If an agency discussed their commission what is to say they are telling the truth? As previously mentioned, one agency swore blind their commission was 15% but they accidentally Cc’d a colleague their client invoice showing that they were taking 55%.

Trust no one. Simple.

Cabledog

You are right, reading a CV is far too much to ask. I queried why an agency wasn’t passing my details to their client for a Malaysia job, the agency said they did not submit my details as I did not have a Petronas medical. I pointed out that if they bothered to read my CV they would see that I do in fact, have a Petronas medical. I wonder how many jobs I miss through this kind of laziness from agencies.

I always send my CV as a pdf so it has to be transferred by hand or other way that means someone should actually read it. Beware if they ask you to send documents in Word format, this simply means they will copy/paste and not pay any attention to the contents.

James

No surprise the amount of hits. Agencies and rates have always been amongst the top controversial issues discussed offshore. Hopefully this thread will go some way to educate the more naive people in the industry and put a rocket up the agencies backsides.

😉

[James McLauchlan]

James

No surprise the amount of hits. Agencies and rates have always been amongst the top controversial issues discussed offshore. Hopefully this thread will go some way to educate the more naive people in the industry and put a rocket up the agencies backsides.

😉

That’s pretty much what this site has been about since it started in 2000.

[Deepanshu]

Well here is another one from me.

Name of Agency-HPR Middle east
System-Panther
Region-Saudi
Rate Offered-700$
What i Asked-900$

Once Agent heard 900$- She said- it will not be possible to provide such high rate as client has fix rates. I replied ok then i will pass-No problem.

This is 4th job for me this month which i passed offering day rate ranging from 600-750$ but consider this i am sitting home from last 8 weeks.

I can’t work in UK or Europe due to nationality issue (Indian), I do have US visa for 10 years but jobs are not matching my profile.

So i am thinking may be market is going so bad and i should accept offer anywhere around 750-800 after trying my luck for 1 more week.

I will keep you all posted if i get anything good.

[Subhuman]

So sad to see the comments have slowed to such an important issue. So many of the ROV personal go through agency’s. You would think they would want to earn a better wage. And to see more accountability from the Agency’s we work with as to what they really receive as the percentage of our wage.

[timebandit]

AGR still have not payed me 5k still owed. There are good agencys to work for .
Maybe we should start a thread which are the best ?

[Rovned2]

I had a mail from Subserv last week looking for ROV Supervisors and Senior Pilots and paying "between £470 and £510, based on experience".

This was invoice rate so PAYE would be probably £40- £50 less. Who’s taking these rates? People must be accepting them as there’ve been no increases since last year or indeed the year before.

We’ll never get the rates up if people are swallowing the first thing offered.

[James McLauchlan]

I had a mail from Subserv last week looking for ROV Supervisors and Senior Pilots and paying "between £470 and £510, based on experience".

Those rates on offer by Subserv are extremely poor indeed. I seem to recall similar rates a number of years back, so it looks like they have remained static and maybe even taken a step back!

The companies love the fact that ROV pilots/tech/sups have no single body (eg. union) to negotiate on their behalf. In all likelihood the ROV industry is over subscribed with supposedly qualified/experienced techs and people are getting desperate for work IMHO.

[subman]

For those of you who may have seen the ad :-
There is currently an opening for an ROV Supervisor on a Cable Lay project based in the UAE. This project has an estimated duration of 4-8 weeks. Candidates must have previous experience with the Seaeye Panther/Falcon ROV Systems.

They told me the best rate they could offer was $700 USD ! Since I knew who the client was I contacted them direct and the going rate for Supervisor / Pilot / Tec was $825 , Going via Ivoffshore will cost you $125 US or £75.00 GBP per day or £2250 per month .

So that gives you some idea of the mark up on what they pay you and what you can earn going direct .

Contact details are :-
Kim Martin
Logistics Assistant
Subtech Qatar Diving and Marine Services
Email address :- logistics@subtech.com.qa

Raptor

[James McLauchlan]

For those of you who may have seen the ad :-
There is currently an opening for an ROV Supervisor on a Cable Lay project based in the UAE. This project has an estimated duration of 4-8 weeks. Candidates must have previous experience with the Seaeye Panther/Falcon ROV Systems.

They told me the best rate they could offer was $700 USD ! Since I knew who the client was I contacted them direct and the going rate for Supervisor / Pilot / Tec was $825 , Going via Ivoffshore will cost you $125 US or £75.00 GBP per day or £2250 per month .

So that gives you some idea of the mark up on what they pay you and what you can earn going direct .

Contact details are :-
Kim Martin
Logistics Assistant
Subtech Qatar Diving and Marine Services
Email address :- logistics@subtech.com.qa

Raptor

Good post!

[Roy Simson]

I thought it was only Ivoffshore that was coming out with silly rates but just had a email from Subnet looking for Rov Supervisors for COOEC in China .

This is !!! !!!!!! from Subnet Services.

We are currently looking for ROV Supervisors.
I would like to know if you are available for the job. The job details
are listed below.

ROV Supervisors
Duration: 3 weeks
Start Date: ASAP
Mob Date: 21st Sept, 2014
Location: Offshore China
Offshore Rate: $650 – $700
Nationality: Any Nationality
Qualification: Experience in Panther

Now having worked there many times in the past I know the rates are $825-$850 .So I have no idea why subnet rates are so low !

Raptor

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