I was tricked into a fake apprenticeship

Henry, 19, from Sussex was falsely employed as an apprentice and paid below minimum wage. With the help of Citizens Advice he managed to confront his employer and get back the money he was owed.

After leaving school Henry was enthusiastic about starting an apprenticeship as a way of getting into work. After a few months of searching, he found an opportunity at a building company earning £5 per hour.

“I was really excited and didn’t mind the low pay. I just wanted to learn. I’d been told that it was a mixture of learning on the job and studying at college part-time and that my boss would also train me up as I went along.”

But as time went on, Henry’s hopes for formal training diminished. His employer failed to enroll him in a course and there seemed to be little ‘on the job’ training.

“My placement was supposed to be in business administration, but for the first month I was just sitting in the office testing the company’s website. The management didn’t try and teach me anything. They were often out of the office anyway so I was left to my own devices.”

Alarm bells started to ring when, after his second month of employment, Henry still hadn’t received any payslips. He’d been paid but he struggled to work out how his boss calculated the hours he’d worked and his pay.

Around 8 weeks into his apprenticeship, Henry became unwell and was rushed to hospital.

“I had two and a half days off work and then came back on the Monday. I told my boss I had a heart defect and might need an operation in the next few months. The next day he told me there was no work and asked me to leave.”

Henry was devastated. “The apprenticeship was a massive disappointment from the start and obviously ended very badly. I spoke to a friend of mine about what had happened and we came to the conclusion that it wasn’t ever a real apprenticeship. I decided to get some advice.”

Henry visited Citizens Advice to have his contract examined. They found that he was employed on a normal contract, rather than an apprenticeship agreement, meaning he was being underpaid.

“The minimum wage is £5.60 for someone of my age and that’s what I should have been earning instead of £5. It made me really angry because they’d led me down the garden path, promising to teach me and it seemed that it was all so they could underpay me.”

Citizens Advice negotiated with Henry’s employer on his behalf and they agreed to repay him the £460 he was owed. He has put this money into his savings and is currently looking for a new apprenticeship.