“Do not use this company. They are scammers. This is ......”
1 Star Review
Oct 14,2013
By:
'student1993'
Oct 14,2013
Branch: London, F5 Waterfront Studios, 1 Dock Road
Services: Lettings (as a Tenant)
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: E14
Branch: London, F5 Waterfront Studios, 1 Dock Road
Lettings (as a Tenant)
Postcode: E14
4
people found
this helpful
Do not use this company. They are scammers. This is my story...
My partner and I found a studio flat and on the same day of viewing it we put down a holding deposit of £500 to keep it off the market whilst they did reference checks on us and sent our offer to the landlord.
We were given these forms as photocopies to be written by hand and given directly to our agent who would then pass them on to the external referencing agency. However, we later found out that most agencies send you a secure online link to fill it out yourself.
Some of the questions included employment details and whether we were students.
We are both full time students and clearly stated this, even giving our course titles and university details. We also made it clear that we had student bank accounts in another section. We asked Shabana if we needed guarantors and she said "no don't bother putting any", even though we could have easily used our parents! We trusted her though..
This agent suspiciously took leave as our references were being done. I could not contact her and it took ages for someone from Elite properties to return my calls. Finally, we were told by the manager that our references failed as our income was not enough and that the landlord already had someone else interested. This was a week before we were due to move in. I was really upset but the branch manager said the least he could do was ask Shabana (the agent who dealt with our letting) whether it was true that she told us we would not need a guarantor and if so he would return the full £500
When Shabana returned and I managed to speak with her she admitted to me that she thought the references would go through fine. She seemed sorry too and her exact words were "I don't see why Jay won't be able to refund the full amount".
Then the branch manager's (Jay) stance and tone changed on the matter and he wouldn't even speak to me on the phone and has not given us a penny back, he is lying and saying we never informed anyone we were students!
Also, the external referencing agency Rent4sure admitted after we spoke with them, that the form they received didn't even state that we are students! This woman changed our references so that they were not aware of our full-time student status.
We both wrote that we were and gave our university details. I also know that these references are normally done online so it was this agent's responsibility to send them off. She clearly omitted parts of our reference we completed in order to knowingly let us fail in order to keep the deposit.
I hope this does not happen to other students. I guess they think that because we are young we won't know how to handle the situation. However, we are filing an official complaint.
What agent could do to change your mind?
- Not scammed us in the first place
- Given us back our money when we realised what they had done
- Resolve the issues professionally
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I experienced threatening behaviour after telling Jay that I would amend my reviews but I would not delete them because I am only being honest. I am explaining my experience of dealing with this highly unprofessional agency because I do not want others to go through what I did. Luckily I managed to get my money back after a lot of stress and persistence, however, I know some people would have given up and let this agency effectively take their money for absolutely nothing in return. We are currently filing a complaint with ARLA, the regulators.