Badger,
You are definitely entitled to your opinion and there is absolutely no need for an apology.

Upon reading the review, it was our view that not all statements made were 'opinion' but were stated as a fact, some of which were inaccurate and therefore we felt required to be addressed and clarified.
We sincerely apologise if you felt it was inappropriate.

We encourage all feedback, both positive and negative and thank you for taking the time to provide it.

I am simply telling you how I feel. You need to realise you are dealing with people's lives, money and homes and should therefore respond appropriately. I said overall my experience with you was a good one but it is responses like these which make me feel as I do and why I will not disclose my identity.

It is an opinion. I apologise if it offends you.

As many use this forum to make decisions on which agency to choose we believe that all reviews should be accurate.
For this reason I feel it extremely important to clarify that the statement ‘they will only give you a reference for a new agency IF you leave a positive review online’ is wholly inaccurate.
We would provide a reference to any tenant regardless of whether or not a review was left and irrespective of whether the review was positive or negative.
Our tenancy agreement includes a clause relating to reference requests at the end of tenancies.

We are an ARLA Licensed Agency and operate to the highest standards. We voluntarily joined the scheme as we are people who run our business with integrity and transparency.

With regards to your statement ‘If happy lets said at the beginning of a persons tenancy that a cleaning charge would be implemented at the end of your lease, then this would not bother me as much. ‘
We have given great consideration to implementing a standard ‘end of tenancy cleaning charge’ to avoid disputes however felt that it was unfair to do this as many tenants would like the opportunity to clean the property themselves instead of paying a charge. It would not be fair to oblige them to pay to have the property professionally cleaned if they are able to avoid this charge by cleaning the property to the required standard themselves.
The information provided at the beginning of your tenancy with regards to the condition the property should be given back at the end of the tenancy is laid out in some detail in your tenancy agreement which you have the opportunity to read and review before moving into the property. Furthermore, we write to tenants 6-8 weeks prior to the check out again detailing what is required at the end of the tenancy and referring them to specific clauses in the lease. For this reason we strongly feel that our systems give all tenants fair and reasonable opportunity to ensure the property is in the required condition at check out and ensure that all tenants are fully aware of their responsibilities from the beginning of the tenancy.

To address your statements:
‘I suffered….a hefty bill for cleaning despite the fact that the flat was not cleaned "professionally" before I moved in’ and ‘Since they did not do this I feel cheated out of money as I cleaned the flat spotless before I moved out.’
Please note that your move in inventory clearly states the condition of the property and the level of cleanliness, you are given 7 days to review the inventory and comment on anything that you do not agree with. If you do not feel the inventory was accurate in that the property was not ‘professional cleaned’ you really should not have signed declaring that you agreed to the accuracy of the document.

With regards to the property being ‘spotless’ when you moved out of the property, if this was the case the report would reflect this and your landlord would not be proposing deductions for cleaning.
As you have not left your name, we are unsure of the specifics of your case however, if you felt ‘cheated’ you had options available which were designed for cases exactly like yours. You would have been informed that your landlord was proposing a deduction for cleaning and the amount. If you felt this to be unfair, you had the opportunity to dispute it. If both parties still did not agree, the proposal would be reviewed by an in independent adjudicator.
Based on your review I have interpreted that a deduction for cleaning was made which would mean that
1. You did not dispute the deduction (in which case I would ask, why not?)
2. You did dispute the deduction but an independent adjudicator looked at the check in inventory, the lease agreement, the check out report and the cleaning bill and found the deduction to be fair and warranted.
We welcomed the implementation of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme as we felt that tenants who felt deductions were unfair would have an independent party who could review all information and make a decision on whether or not the deduction was warranted. What is surprising to us is that even when an independent party deems a deduction to be fair the tenant views the landlord, letting agent and independent adjudicator to be unfair.

In response to your comment about Happy Lets being ‘money grabbing’, I would like to clarify that there is no financial gain to Happy Lets (or your landlord for that matter) for the deduction from your deposit to cover cleaning costs. The money deducted for cleaning pays for the cleaning of the property to bring it to the standard required as per the lease agreement.

Thank you for your comments with regards to what Happy lets could do to change your mind but as detailed above we really believe that we already adopt the practices you have listed for improvement, as our systems have been designed to be fair and transparent in line with ARLA and TPOS codes of conduct. However, given that you still feel that your responsibilities were not explained clearly at the outset we will look at how to emphasise this section of the lease agreement further.

We are happy to hear, that apart from the cleaning charge which you find unfair (although found to be justified by TDS) that you found Happy Lets to be professional, efficient and friendly.
If you have any further complaints or feel that any of your comments have not been addressed satisfactorily I would urge you to follow our in house complaints procedure which can be provided if you contact our office.