If you're an employer thinking abot using ADP for your payroll, think again. They could cause you more problems than they solve, alienate your employees, and drive you to distraction attempting to resolve their (unacknowledged) errors.

Problems in business come free of charge - There is no need to sign up to a lengthy contract to obtain more.

One thing that most professional incompetents manage to get right is a bulletproof contact, locking the victim (sorry, client) in. This means that no matter what promises are broken, they still manage to have a steady stream of revenue. There are, after all, German car dealers relying on these people.

Most of us know of guarantees that promise a speedy response. What is speedy? Almost guaranteed, if your car breaks down, the first thing you'll get told when you phone the breakdown people (doesn't matter which one), is how busy they are today, and it will take xx hours before someone can reach you. An alternative to this is the repair company that don't deign to let you know when they'll arrive, (so you have to stay in all day), and then when they finally do turn up, let you know "it's broke mate". As though you hadn't worked that one out before calling them.

Having successfully landed a contract with my employers, ADP managed to join this club in my books. Having rejoined Caligen, initially on weekly pay, I decided I wanted to return to monthly pay. All my bills are monthly (including my subscription to the internet) and it made sense to have my wages paid the same way.

No problem. And as a nice surprise, in my very first payment comes a tax rebate.My September salary was significantly bigger than my gross, and I had problems imagining that the Darling/Brown partnership had reversed the tax system that much. I wasn't too sure about this, but having spent a year abroad and not paid any tax (or earned any income) I had to assume that professional people know their business. Reasonably, I queried it. "Yes, it's real, it's yours." came the response. "So I can spend it then?". "Yes, it's your money, do whatever you want with it".

Well ADP didn't even wait for 1st April before "correcting" their error. I managed to get a paycheck in January (just after Xmas when heating bills and credit card payments are at their highest), which was less than I'd have received from Jobseekers allowance. It was so little, that if I managed my life on cash, I wouldn't be able to afford to even go to work, since the fuel charge was higher that the payment.

Not unreasonably, I queeried this with Caligens H.R. man. He promised me he'd look into it, and being a man of integrity, did so. Or tried to. But the 48 hours to answer a simple "how did this happen" turned into more than two weeks. Must be purely a coincidence, but anyone who might be able to provide an acceptable answer was in the middle of a conference call, out of the office or probably making a visit to their favourite German car dealer. The answer when it did come, was couched in such fluent gobbledegook, that it was impossible to decipher. But they did make sure that no blame could be laid at their door, and I should not have been transferred to monthly pay.

So, now I'm left with no cash for the forseeable future, a loss of my savings, plus interest charges on what I've had to go overdrawn. Yet they have the nerve to write about just this error on their website, where some poor girl was overpaid, spent it, and was then prosecuted for doing so. They say: “One way of minimising pay errors and their effects is by outsourcing the payroll process to an external provider. This will introduce best practice processes to minimise errors, whilst also transfer any risk to
the supplier. Many payroll services now make it even easier for staff to view pay information and even check for errors before they are paid, through self service functionality. Employers should encourage employees to consistently check this information and educate them on what to look out for,” Perhaps they should also offer this advice with even more emphasis if they themselves are the service provider.

Should anyone from ADP instruct me to modify or remove this page from my site, I'll make a note of it here.