VIC Recruitment Agent from Seek Acting Without Instruction - What to Do?

[Cindy Burton]

The fact:

We always find the staff through the Seek. Each time we put the advertisement on Seek, the recruitment agent (The agent) start the contact.

We have not been used the agent before; we even don't know how it works. The agent asked us if we are looking for people. We said yes, then they started to send resumes to us. They did not mention any costs or agreement for their services at all, and we do not have any knowledge about the agent's services at all because we have never used this kind of agent before.

They sent numerous CVs to us. We never used any person from them.

Recently, we used one person who worked downstairs in the same building and we knew each other for a long time. This person's resume has been sent from the agent. Because we knew each other, we asked this person to work for us.

After that, the agent sent us a $10,000 bill, and asked that we pay it. We never received any agreement from the agent, and we never discussed their services and cost in writing or orally.

We never orally or put on writing to instruct them to act on our behalf to find the staff. We were always using Seek to find the staff.

The question:

Can we refuse to pay the tax invoice? And on which grounds do we refuse it?

 

[Adam1user]

Was there anything written, you mentioned that you asked them to send CVs to you, was that through an email or verbal? this could be the basis why the agent sent you the bill, but before that, in general terms there should be something documented as an agreement specifying the terms and service fees and what is required from the agent.
To be on the safe side, have a chat with a lawyer whom will ask more relevant questions to determine whether there was a contract between you or not, from business law, verbal contracts are valid.