Hello Keith, very amusing. I will be keeping an eye on this. cant wait till you finish it! Have good day. - Dave

Dave, it will not be long. It give Choices time to think. I just want my mate to get back the money he deserves.

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You think your clever you moron, don't giv a fuck!

Your the moron, and I know you are from choices, can tell from the email properties dick head. If your company done its it job properly, then there would be no web site. Now get back in your pram and ask another member of staff to put your dummy in. Go ga go ga!

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Dear Keith,

I currently have the misfortune of being involved with this Mickey Mouse outfit ....I am about to contact the ombudsman about them myself and was going to the small claims court as well although after doing some research online through the court links I found an entry on them about unpaid court orders as attached below.
I am sending you this as evidence of them not honouring the court order and so others like myself probably won’t receive their lost money! I commend your courage to set up this website and they truly deserve this retribution! Keep up the good work. I am thinking of contacting Watch dog as I like you want to see them brought to justice!

Home > Online Search > Final Report

Detailed Report for : CHOICES, 99, 99 BRIGHTON ROAD, REDHILL, SURRYE, RH1 6PS

Your Ref : 229285 England and Wales Orders & Judgments

Name * T/AS CHOICES GROUP OF COMPANIES, 99 BRIGHTON ROAD, REDHILL, SURREY, RH1 6PS

Court Name WEST LONDON

Case No. 5WL06120

Date 28/04/06

AmountStatus £910 Unsatisfied Judgment

Yours sincerely

Ms Anonymous

Thanks for the email! I hope the ombudsman can help you. But do not be surprised if they do not give you the answer you are looking for. Why? Because my mate did the same. These ombudsman outfits are normaly fitted out in a way to support the company. To me, they are just a smoke screen! Let me know how you get on with Watch dog. I would team up with you.

I wish you good luck!

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Hi Keith, spoke to you on Saturday night. I will try and dig out the info on my mates rental he had with Choices. No boiler for 3 weeks etc, remember? Get back to you soon. Pete

Cheers Pete!

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Choices found us a property relatively quickly. We signed for contract and keys on the 1st but when we arrived at the property the keys did not give us full access to the property. Received the missing keys on the 5th and asked that our contract be changed to this date. A "note" was put on our file and all was well. We finally moved out (Landlord/Choices disagreement) and gave our notice as the 5th. Got our deposit back and all completed nicely. However after all was concluded an additional month's rent was then taken by mistake. So now we are £700 down. We thought they would just reimburse it but alas we had to chase them for just over a month. When we finally did get a cheque form them it was only for £600. I asked why and they said that our contract was for the 1st and that they had deducted a further 4 days rent. I said about the note and they denied everything. Anyhow we can't prove otherwise as the "note" is now lost! Do not trust them and do not use them, unless you are happy to lose you hard earned cash!

In addition we found the attitude of the staff at Crawley to be very rude. They have since lost the keys for the property and have phoned us on numerous occasions asking where they are. We have responded by saying that they were handed in. We did receive ALL of our deposit back which in my view would have been less if we hadn't handed in the keys. Absolute disgrace of an estate agents!!!!

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Very, very poor at communicating by phone and email. Do not respond to my calls or emails until chased a number of times - it once took me two weeks to get hold of the owner of the business despite leaving many phone messages and emails for him. Poor tenant management - I am now in my fourth month having not received rent on time for my property. It has always arrived in my bank account - eventually, but once I had to wait just shy of four weeks! Typically it's 7-10 days after the deadline, having already been given a week's grace.

The tenant has been allowed by the agent to pay via credit card in two installments through the month, despite the contract saying that they have to pay by direct debit. When I ask Choice what's going on and why they are allowing the tenant to do this, they take the tenant's side and give a sob story about how she's self-employed and finding money tight. The fact that she is self-employed was not made clear to me when I signed her into the property. I regularly feel that the tenant is put before the client with this company.

Miscommunication between the staff in the company. I have had several serious issues involving having agreed one thing with my main contact at Choice, and then later being told something different by his colleagues. On one occasion it cost me money because of the miscommunication. Unprofessional attitude and down-right lack of respect for me and my business. Not returning my calls when I am obviously concerned about issues to do with my property is one thing, but I was also told that I was a pain of a customer and they were glad that I was planning to take my business elsewhere. I also had to listen to members of the team shifting the blame.

General Comments Do not use Choices unless you are relaxed about chasing them, losing money and regularly having concerns about whether the rent will get paid this month. I am looking for a replacement agency now that the contract is up and would be interested to hear from anyone who can recommend someone.

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I have rented letting properties for many years and decided that it would be time to try a different letting agent's services, than the letting agent I generally use. I decided to give Choices Letting Agents (Brighton) a go after discussing the matter with a rather slick manager and they found a tenant fairly quickly at reasonable rent. I placed them in charge of both rent collection and maintenance.

This is where the various problems started, the tenant moved in and experienced a few niggles. Upon contacting Choices they found them to be generally disorganized and unhelpful. On my side the rent was getting paid in later and later or not at all. I was constantly on the phone chasing rent, and then one of the tenants changed jobs and standing orders. Now this cannot be attributed to the letting agent, but this one small change really threw their system totally out. Now I NEVER received the rent on time and in the final month that I used Choices the rent was over one month late with me chasing several times each week looking for payment. One of the tenants rent was mislaid and the other rents were not paid into my account even when received by Choices.

On the maintenance front they were an absolute disaster. They never seemed to be able to organize the simplest jobs and when they did get quotes they proved, in my opinion as a property developer, to be extremely over inflated. One potentially serious matter arose which required immediate attention by an electrician. Choices organised an electrician who went in to take a look and then took a few days to quote on how much this matter would be to resolve. Once Choices received the estimate by email it took them an entire week to send this estimate onto me, again via email. Due to the potential serious nature of the problem I organised my previous letting agent to get their electrician in immediately to make the problem safe and then return again to go through the entire wiring of the flat to ensure that it was working correctly. This was carried out at half the price the Choices electrician quoted just to examine the problem (which in the end never happened) and in the same amount of time or less that Choices took to forward me their electricians estimate.

This was the last straw and after six months of Choices so called management of the property I decided to move my property back to my original letting agents (and the tenants). Unfortunately my tenants signed a 12 month contract and I paid THE FULL 12 MONTHS in agent cost and fees UP FRONT. Upon discussing the matter with one of the Choices Directors, Stephanie Prior it became apparent that the terrible customer service came from a top down approach, with a total lack of interest from her or any other member of her staff. Choices to date have still retained the full 12 months fees and have so far refused to refund the remaining 6 months of the fees they took from me up front. I feel they are in breach of their contract due to the terrible rent collection and inefficient, bordering on dangerous responses to maintenance issues. Therefore I will be seeking a remedy through the small claims court, which is currently in progress. They have also not been forthcoming with my tenants deposit which we are still trying to get transferred over to the new letting agent.

I would save you my trouble; if you are a landlord or a tenant; steer clear of Choices Letting Agents. They blatantly are only interested in extorting as much money as possible up front without providing any reasonable or satisfactory level of service, whether it is rent collection or maintenance.

In my opinion from my experience if you are choosing a letting agent; DO NOT CHOOSE CHOICES!!

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I am in stitches here! Our phone rang in the office afternoon. And the girls were giggling over a website. Yours Keith! Looked myself when I got home. By the way, I am from one of Choices offices. Cannot tell you which one. But hey! I know you from a long time ago. Small world. Tell your mate good luck to him. Put this on your site if u like!

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One of the girls are asking if you are single!

Yes, I am. email me with a pic at ladcrookscom@yahoo.co.uk xxx

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Whats the prize for the best name for the GORILLA ON YOUR COMPLAINTS PAGE?

If your female, I will think of something. Crikey, been bombarded with emails today.

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Hi Keith, thanks for the chat we had, very interesting!!!

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Hello Keith - just want to say ' GREAT SITE! ' had my dealings with them years ago. It taught me a lesson, a good one at that! Would never use Choices again. I now make a lot of enquires before I use any service. The internet is a good way of weeding out the bad from the good. Keep the pressure on them. - Mark from Sutton.

Cheers Mark! Like you, I use the internet a lot. It's one powerful tool, you can almost find out anything you want.

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Hi, just want to say that I had problems with Choices myself, will not go in to detail as it is alraedy covered by other complaints. Just to let you know there are others out there who would not use them again!

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Good day! I rented from Choices, and have to admit, my checkable record was not checked enough, as I would have not been able rent at that time. But I did pay my rent and no one suffered, except me. 3 bloody weeks without a boiler. All I got when I called them, he will be there tomorrow. I would not rent from them again