They're so bad I resent having to give them their default 1 star (Foxtons)

Member Name: djwhite1982

Product:	Foxtons
Date:	30/07/09 (306 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Charges, employees, service

Firstly let me give you a tiny bit of background about myself. I work for a small property investment company who contracts out a lot of work to estate agents so I have a fair bit of background knowledge as what you can/should expect from an estate agent. This review is totally in the capacity of my experience as a perspective tenant looking for a property, and the service (or lack of) that I experienced with Foxtons.

Following a few undercover expose by the BBC's I was aware that Foxtons didn't have the best of reputations, however I was prepared to put this down to having a few bad eggs and to give them a chance, and so whilst looking for a new place in SW London, I had a look on their website.

My first impression was via the website, and this was actually quite good. The website looks very good, the search engine is fast, and quick to toggle between renting and buying. Unfortunately that was the peak of thier performance and from then on it was downhill.

The website gave me the option of emailing my details to the branch with regards to a particular property I liked, as opposed to calling which I thought was quite useful. Often the person you need to speak to is out, so this way they could call me when they were free and save the hassle. Unfortunately that didn't seem to be the way things worked, and I simply received an email back with the office phone number. You have to question the point of the email service if they're just going to tell you to call, the phone number was on the website anyway. I called them, surprise surprise, the chap was out, I left a message.

Eventually I arranged a meeting with one of Foxtons people. It was late on in the day after work around 6pm, and the guy had asked me to meet him by a petrol station within the area I was looking. I stood there for half an hour and he didn't turn up, nor did he answer his mobile. After 30 minutes I left. Now it is possible he had some kind of personal emergency, however I suspect he could not be bothered. Anyone wanting to maintain a professional image would at the very least call and explain themselves. Even if they couldn't do it that night, a call to apologise the next day would have been appreciated. I didn't hear from that guy again or go back to that branch (Foxtons Wimbledon).

My details had obviously also made it over to another branch of Foxtons (Putney) and a chap from that office called me telling me he had some properties that fit my criteria. He showed us one property which we really liked, but insisted on showing us another 2. As it turns out these 2 were £300 p/m more that the absolute maximum budget we had told him. Quite why they bother with this I'm not sure, isn't this just wasting everybody's time? I couldn't afford it yesterday and my circumstances haven't changed much in the last 24 hours. Having spoken to other people about Foxtons they have said the same thing. The fact of the matter is they want to milk as much rent out of you as possible so will show you places above your budget in the hope you bite and spend the next 6 months struggling to pay rent, before deciding you have to move again, and therefore reline their pockets again. None of the other estate agents I visisted showed me anywhere above my budget without warning me they were planning on doing this beforehand, so I could tell them not to bother.

Anyway, as it turned out, the first place he showed us we did quite like and were interested in. That was until we found out how much Foxtons wanted to charge us. I appreciate that there are always going to be costs for moving into rented accommodation. Usually a check in, maybe an admin fee and the cost of references. I wasn't expecting that cost to be £400 + VAT (this is of course on top of the deposit and rent your landlord will expect). That is simply extortionate. In an attempt to justify themselves they say it is similar to what other estate agents charge. As I say above, I work with a lot of estate agents and know what they charge. It is not similar at all.

One final annoyance for me to mention. Eventually we found another place, I had a couple of phone calls from Foxtons and I told them we were no longer interested as we had found somewhere. In the next 3 weeks I had about 6 phone calls from various people at Foxtons telling me somewhere that suited my criteria had been found. Usually this wouldn't have bothered me, but with all the rest that went before it that just really tipped me over the edge! How many times do you have to tell someone you are no longer searching!!!!


I'm calling this a review, in order to try and warn others away from this frankly awful company, however maybe it's also a method of venting my anger. I can't say that every Foxtons branch and employee everywhere is bad, I'm sure they're are a few good ones out there. Unfortunately they've never crossed my path.

Summary: Avoid like the plague