I assume “Lettings” in this company’s name stands for “letting people down”. For rental agencies to outsource reference checking is a reasonable idea – in theory. In practice, this shambolic joke of an outfit has managed to turn a simple, straightforward process into a Kafka-esque nightmare. Lies, delays, incompetence, unaccountability, frustration. I think that covers their five-step process, doesn’t it? Something that a rental agency used to action within a day or two now stretches out over two to three weeks, if not longer. Throughout, The Lettings Hub will not deviate from its four-point Code of Conduct: 1) Bombard the customer with endless pro-forma emails, at least 6 a day every day. These have been carefully pre-written in obscure bland waffle that actually says nothing at all, but – firstly – creates the illusion that something is happening, and – secondly – causes so much confusion that it’s impossible to actually know WTAF is meant to be happening anyway. 2) Pass the buck, and make the customer do all the work. Blatant lies that “we’ve been trying to reach xyz” are never to be believed. I doubt this company has ever made an outgoing call in its life. Instead, your employer, previous landlord, grandmother, first-ever love, primary school teacher, person who taught your mother to drive and around 20 other referees will be forced to call THEM. And of course these calls are only acceptable if they come from a landline, using a vintage rotary handset, while there’s a full moon, and it’s 03:37am. Anything else is clearly you trying to scam them, professional criminal that you are. 3) Constantly try to con the customer into “having” to buy things like insurance via the Lettings Hub, give them online access to your bank account and so on. Presumably this is their key commercial purpose, and where they make their margin. And sadly I suspect just enough customers fall into the trap of being sufficiently pressured/intimated/uncertain by it to succumb. 4) Take forever. I mean, literally forever. Provided a reference or other piece of information? Ok, just give us a month or so to pretend to be looking at it. We’ve got lots of emails with word-salads around reviewing, assessing, quality control, final checks and so that’ll help with this – see point one above. If you actually have a property to move into, date an offer needs to be accepted by, or some other kind of deadline – don’t worry, The Lettings Hub will ensure that it sails past without giving a flying puck. As others have pointed out, 'funny' how ALL the supposedly positive reviews exist just to mention a specific person by name. Not faked and written by friends/family/fellow colleagues at all, oh no.