Terrible service and rude staff (Squares Estate Agents)

Member Name: Maggie1981

Product:	Squares Estate Agents
Date:	17/05/09 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Rude, unhelpful staff with attitude problems

Squares is an estate agents based in Leighton Buzzard and Milton Keynes that claims the reason for their success is the quality of service they give. My experience of Squares however leaves me questioning how they can possibly consider their customer service to be a measure of their success.

I have only had the misfortune of dealing with their lettings department so I can't comment on the sales department however based on the terrible experience we've had I would suggest avoiding this company like the plague.

Initially we were very impressed with the representative who showed us around what was to become our new home and were confident we'd made a good decision. However once we had handed over the deposit we were left in the incapable hands of the lettings admin team who have given us nothing but grief from day one. We were in a bad situation as we had to relocate from the other end of the country at short notice otherwise we would have pulled out before signing the tenancy agreement, however we needed to move and felt we wouldn't be able to find anywhere else (with a different agent) as quickly as we needed.

From the outset we had problems with the rude and unhelpful admin team. There was a long delay in finding out whether or not we'd passed the credit check which was as a result of them losing the results and the check having to be done twice. The lady we were dealing with told me on a number of occassions that we'd passed only to tell my partner a few hours later that they were still waiting for the credit check to come back. We also had problems with the fact that she claimed to have spoken to my partner when she hadn't, she even went so far as to argue with him telling him she remembered speaking to him because she remembered his accent. While we were waiting for confirmation about the credit check we spent a ridculous amount of time chasing the admin team and left numerous messages for them to call back but never received the call backs.

Once we eventually signed the tenancy agreement and moved in we had to chase the admin team once again, this time to give us the inventory. When we chased it up we were told that we had already signed it and it was on file in the office - it later transpired that the inventory hadn't actually been drawn up when we were chasing it so how they had a signed version on file is beyond me!

Since then we have had numerous problems with the house and while I understand that it is the landlords responsibility to fix these problems, it is the letting agents who should be organising it all. However when we have complained about problems the admin team have been extremely slow to respond and not actually done anything to help. We have been living with a cold shower since we moved in but have been told that we can only have it fixed if we pay half and agree to sign up for a longer tenancy agreement. This is obviously the landlords stance however it is not an acceptable stance and not something that the letting agent should condone as they are there to represent the tenant, not just the landlord.

I could list a number of other incidents which have led me to feel that the staff have real attitude problems. Overall our experience with Squares has been a nightmare and in my opinion the admin team in the lettings department need some training in customer service. We have found them to be very rude and unhelpful and I would recommend avoiding them at all costs!!

Summary: A nightmare experience, not to be repeated!