www.iva.co.uk

are mitchell farrar reliable we have an iva with this company and it is difficult to communicate with

HI Mark and welcome to the forum, I haven't heard of them personally but maybe one of our other posters may have, if you're having trouble with communication you can email your IP direct and you can his/her contact details on the Insolvency website via the find an IP link, however last time I looked that section was down for maintenance but may have been repaired since.

What is the name of the IP representing you at this company?

They seem to have their fingers in many pies as they are also down as Debt Advisory Line. I googled them and they are known for cold calling (whocallsme).

The 'Find an IP' site is still down.

My husband is with Mitchell Farrar as well.

He called them 2 weeks ago to give authority for me to discuss the case on his behalf as he works office hours mon-fri and they do not open at weekends, I do work too at office hours but every 15 days I get a day off during the week to pay for a saturday shift and today when I called them to discuss his account they said my husband had to give auth again but this time in writing as the date he called the auth was valid for only 24 hours. I never seen that before! If someone authorizes you to speak on their behalf is for whenever you need to talk not with an expiry frame-time.

His IP is called Timothy J. Pope and we never got to speak with the actual guy, always someone else is dealing with the case on his behalf and this "someone else" is never available, never there or on another call, etc and whoever answers the phone does not want to deal with me (I might sound scary then).

I'm having a very hard time with this company, as they are "oily" and try to avoid contact with you at all costs, they always have a silly excuses to avoid answering your questions or requests and their professionalism is almost nonexistent with their pushing-game. I have wrote a post here back in September/2012 complaining how they take ages to review my I&E that was sent in June/2012 and guess what? We still haven't got that answer!

We sent them a letter back in January/2013 to update our new address and ask about when we would get an answer from them and they answered our letter back to our PREVIOUS address and I only managed to get the letter in my hands as after we moved the previous landlady kindly told me that arrived some post for us there. When we opened the letter, we could read "in a threatening manner" they saying they've been waiting for our answer since July/2012, and asking to fill in the I&E attached and send back (nothing was attached on the envelope, we only received that plain letter and nothing else). How unprofessional is that?

I managed to get to speak with the person responsible for my husband's case today over the phone and they stated they were waiting my answer to their letter, where I had to clarify that due to their utter mess they probably had sent their letters and everything else to our previous addresses. So after all this soap opera we are here - again - waiting for their letters and forms... (wouldn't be much easier to email us this stuff we could print, fill out and send it back tomorrow? Quick, easy, painless) why do they have to behave as if they were in the stone age? This only makes things really slow paced and stress me to the maximum as I'm a very straight forward person and hate this "sloth" attitude!

I would like even to change IP's if it was possible, but I don't know if we can do that as I believe all the IP's fees were paid already at this stage (half way through).

I don't understand as they cannot see me as "customer", even if I had paid all my fees to them and they are not pocketing anything we are paying in every month, they should keep the good relationship with us as we can refer them to others or come to forums to write reviews like this one about their rubbish customer service and lack of professionalism.

My advice? Run away from this company. I regret supporting my husband to join them before doing more researches about IVA companies.

It is a shame you seem to be having a less than positive experience with this firm, or that you are denied the opportunity to speak with the IP directly - after all he is personally responsible for the smooth running of your case. Can I suggest that you insist on speaking to him next time, as he may not be personally aware of the difficulties you are experiencing - better still ask to have a face to face meeting, so you can clear the air and get the relationship back on track.

I think whilst you are very open and available Melanie, others hide behind an army of customer service personnel and it is impossible to break that barrier down, there are too many people on here having the same problem with their IP's and it isn't just one company either, that says something needs to be changed. Surely there is a professional code of conduct that IP's have to abide with and that must include being available to speak with clients who are either experiencing difficulties or have queries.

Just to balance this thread a little: I'm with Mitchell Farrar myself, and have no complaints thus far. I even had a courtesy call from my new account manager to advise me that she was now my first point of contact for future reference, and asking about how I was coping on an IVA etc. All unexpected, but very polite and professional.

When I have had cause to call, I have left a voice-message and I get called back, or got through straight away.

That said, I do get the overall impression that the staff are very busy, and maybe one won't get the personal level of service that it seems is on offer by some other IVA providers.

Incidentally, Timothy Pope's personal email address is in my IVA paperwork, and I would assume in everyone elses as well. Might be worth emailing him directly using Outlook's 'delivery notification' settings and 'read receipt' request. That way nobody at MF can say that a given piece of information was not received.

Sorry to hear of your problems with Mitchell Farrar. I used Mitchell Farrar for my IVA which concluded in August 2012 with a full and final settlement and I found them very helpful and understanding.

I just had the paperwork back from them this week and as I have asked them to send me the extract of payments received by them and made to his creditors we found out that they have the wrong information on the payment received by us. I track every single payment my husband makes with my own spreadsheet with dates and values and additionally I print all his bank statements and save as an evidence of all payments made and the dates. There is a discrepancy of £364.10 of what we actually have paid so far with their payments records, for 3 consecutive months they had different payment figures from the actual payment my husband made to them and they show on the Supervisors Abstract of Receipts and Payments a figure of £364.10 mentioned as "Additional Pay" and "cash in hand" after paying the creditors, what obviously come from the math's error they made when logging what we actually paid.

I know some people haven't got problems with this firm but well, can I trust in a company that is meant to deal with the figures of cash paid to them and they cannot get it right and to complete, communication is not one of their better skills?

My other advice is, please keep track of all the payments you made to your IVA, with bank statements as evidence, as your IVA is run by human beings and people make mistakes, you can be unlucky as my husband is being and in the end of the IVA they would ask for that money of us extending the IVA length if we haven't tracked this error.

I will try to speak directly with his IP - or get my husband to do that himself as this is being way too stressful to me already - over the phone or through email and see what his IP have to say.

Thank you all for the answers, I wish I had all this support by this firm then I would not need to come look for answers elsewhere.