Nasa Consulting, any thoughts?

[lonewanderer]

I have found NASA consulting to be completely inefficient.

They dont reply to your queries, they dont pay you on time, they dont send your payslip when they pay you and the customer service element is shocking. I highly recommend you dont go with them.

In addition, although they say they are £10 a week and cheapeer than other companies they exploit a loophole meaning that they are actually charging you way more national insurance than you should be paying so they are in fact more expensive.

Dont do it!

[Wary]

I have found NASA consulting to be completely inefficient.

They dont reply to your queries, they dont pay you on time, they dont send your payslip when they pay you and the customer service element is shocking. I highly recommend you dont go with them.

In addition, although they say they are £10 a week and cheapeer than other companies they exploit a loophole meaning that they are actually charging you way more national insurance than you should be paying so they are in fact more expensive.

Dont do it!

Lonewanderer - I've just signed up with Nasa and so would like to know more about your comments, in particular about the excessive NI. Please can you elaborate?

I'm reserving judgement until I start to get paid. However, here's my opinion so far ... I primarily went with them because of:
- their flexibility with payments into my personal pension
- low fee
- rated highly on sites
There's a few other bits I liked about them too. On the downside:
- they were initially slow to respond to queries, send me stuff or get back to me when they promised, and to action things; however, a word from me to that effect and it did greatly improve
- their standard contract between you & them has various issues which hopefully they'll now resolve following my feedback

Photomile - you promised to give some feedback once you'd properly got going with them. How's it going so far?

[lonewanderer]

Ive been told by another company that these so called £10 per week companies that still allow their contractors to claim expenses are actually operating through a “ additional Required cost “ scheme where they apply National Insurance to all of your earnings not taking into account the lower earnings threshold.

This to you actually means that you are paying more Employers NI than you should be. When they pay the Employers NI that they have accumulated to the HMRC your additional amount that you have ‘over’ paid stays with the company. Which all means that you pay the fee of £10 per week to the company and they get the additional Employers NI bringing it all into line with the £25 weekly companies. It may appear to be cheaper but it isn’t.

[NasaConsulting]

Lonewanderer,

I have come across your post this morning and I thought it best to ask you to contact me directly, either by PM or to my email address, [email protected] so we can discuss your issues.

I would like the opportunity to investigate your claims and rectify where necessary. Although we are low cost we aim to always pay the same day we receive funds, we only charge the fee advertised and your payslip should always be sent out. I am also concerned to hear you feel the customer service to be below what you expect. Again, I would grateful if you can inform me of the exact nature of your issues as we have minimum service standards that we must adhere to.

In relation to your point about an extra fee disguised as National Insurance, this is not the case. I believe you are referring to Employers National Insurance which is a deduction all contractors utilising an Umbrella Company pay. This will have been communicated to you prior to signing up to the service. I will be happy to discuss this point further as well.

I hope to hear from you shortly.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Ive been told by another company that these so called £10 per week companies that still allow their contractors to claim expenses are actually operating through a “ additional Required cost “ scheme where they apply National Insurance to all of your earnings not taking into account the lower earnings threshold.

This to you actually means that you are paying more Employers NI than you should be. When they pay the Employers NI that they have accumulated to the HMRC your additional amount that you have ‘over’ paid stays with the company. Which all means that you pay the fee of £10 per week to the company and they get the additional Employers NI bringing it all into line with the £25 weekly companies. It may appear to be cheaper but it isn’t.

All the tax and NI contributions that are made should be shown clearly on your payslip - there are a number of umbrella company calculators (we have one on our site) which should demonstrate whether or not the amounts deducted by Nasa are comparable

[Churchill]

Running costs, agreed, but £500,000 is a lot of running costs.

Clients payments delays aren't your problem though. I worked through an umbrella company for about 3 months once, and they only paid you once they'd got the money in from the end client / agency - so no risk there.

Perhaps you'd like to explain the "no risk" aspect to a certain "Solomon Williams", he managed to screw up one of his umbrella companies and in the process left people thousands of pounds out of pocket!

Evidence supplied on request.

[malvolio]

You have to womder though - same legal requirements, same tax regime, same processes, same business risks, same factoring and operating costs, 60% lower charges...

Clearly the rest of the umbrella market is over-charging

[Wary]

Ive been told by another company that these so called £10 per week companies that still allow their contractors to claim expenses are actually operating through a “ additional Required cost “ scheme where they apply National Insurance to all of your earnings not taking into account the lower earnings threshold.

This to you actually means that you are paying more Employers NI than you should be. When they pay the Employers NI that they have accumulated to the HMRC your additional amount that you have ‘over’ paid stays with the company. Which all means that you pay the fee of £10 per week to the company and they get the additional Employers NI bringing it all into line with the £25 weekly companies. It may appear to be cheaper but it isn’t.

Lonewanderer – you should really have verified this for yourself rather than taking what a rival says as gospel. Certainly I’ll scrutinise my payslips to ensure that everything is kosher and that all deductions are correct, and I believe that there are online calculators to assist with this.

Let me know how you get on with Alex, and whether he manages to convince you that they way they operate is all above board.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Perhaps you'd like to explain the "no risk" aspect to a certain "Solomon Williams", he managed to screw up one of his umbrella companies and in the process left people thousands of pounds out of pocket!

Evidence supplied on request.

I think he was saying that the umbrella company has no risk (obviously not true) - just thought I'd clarify

[lonewanderer]

I appreciate the offer Alex but I have no desire to speak to you as Im finished with NASA due to the shoddy customer service.

Earlier this year, when there was problems with my pay week in week out and I was livid after spending a few weekends without any money, I would have jumped at the chance. I just wanted to chip in on this thread about my experiences with NASA.

Malvolio - I think you might have hit the nail on the head there!