Rant thread

[Lemonade]

What's getting on your tits today? Get it off your chest here. You'll feel better.

I just got a letter from Aberdeen Property Leasing as they've done an inspection on a flat I moved out of a couple weeks ago and wanted to let me know how much they are taking out of my Security Deposit. Now I was under the impression that a security deposit was in case anything got broken etc. and they had to repair or replace it. However I did also realise I needed to return the place in the same state I got it in, so I and 4 other people rolled our sleeves up and spend an entire day cleaning the place. So according to this letter I got, things they are going to charge me for include:

* I accidentally left a carrier bag hanging in a cupboard which had a few more carrier bags in it and they are charging me for removal of item!

* 1 fused lightbulb

* A "residue" mark INSIDE the drawer of a unit in the living room.

* A couple of the windows dirty on the outside

* Some tiny spatter marks above the cooker

* There was a tiny wee bit of washing powder in the powder drawer of the washing machine

Plus a whole 3 PAGE LIST list of other things that I personally cleaned and know were clean, like "residue" on kitchen cupboard doors, "residue" on the bathroom mirror and the hall carpets, dusty skirting boards etc. What an absolute bunch of cretins, this is just a blatant attempt to screw me out of even more money, as they have done all year. That place was spotless. Also they are charging me for peeling paint in the bathroom, which I called their office about and tried to have adressed, as the bathroom fan didn't work and they had fitted a smoke detector right outside the bathroom door which went off with steam, so you couldn't leave the door open after a shower or the fire alarm would go off, leading the bathroom to be really damp. However they didn't bother sending anyone to even look at it.

I can absolute categorically state that Aberdeen Property Leasing are one of the worst companies I have ever had to deal with, they are utterly, utterly unhelpful in every single aspect of leasing, their management are surly, unhelpful, miserable, awkward and not even slightly interested in your rights as a tenant. I have leased with them for a year, and since the very first day I have had nothing but trouble with them. I absolutely implore every single person who reads this to never ever, have anything to do with them, ever, ever, ever.

Phew.

[framheim]

sound like they're being a bit dodgy to me. try writing a formal letter of complaint to them and inform them that a copy of their letter and your contract is in the hands of your solicitor along with written statements from those who helped clean the property as to the state it was in when you left.

how much money are we talking about here if you don't mind me asking?

[pogofish]

None of that sounds anything more than normal wear & tear or is expressly not what a deposit is meant to cover.

Did you take a detailed set of photos upon moving-in/moving out? They make great evidence.

Refuse it & if they don't return your full deposit, complain to the council & take them to the small claims court. You will win.

As for APL being a shower of incompetent cunts - Yup, first class with bar!

[lovers_spit]

Women. ..

[Snowball]

Ah good, a rant thread.

I applied to open a current account with Nationwide online as I'm off on holiday soon and they don't charge to use your card abroad. This was over a month before we're due to leave, plenty of time.

The website said that they would only need to send me a letter to get my signature, and that they would verify my ID themselves and that they would be in touch if somehow it didn't work, which was fine. I then received the letter asking me for my signature stating that when I returned the letter signed "and the documents we need" they would open my account. Problem being that there was no indication of what these documents were. I went back to the website, double checked the ID requirements and sure enough, no documents required. So I signed the letter and sent it back.

A fortnight later, not only was my first application still sitting at "Waiting for ID/Signature", but another application with a totally different number was now sitting under my name with the status of "Incomplete." The website claimed that they would send me messages at every step but I hadn't received one, let alone many. It was now apporaching a date too far on to get my debit card in time for going away, so I emailed them to ask what was up, and if I should have sent any ID back with the signed letter. I never got the promised email acknowledging my query, let alone a response. I did actually check that I had put my address in correctly at this point and it wasn't just me being a moron but I had.

So the next day I phoned them. I got through to someone who said firstly that the new different application was "ehh....... that's just...... hmm.... that's just the same thing." Right. Next, "well you need to go into a branch with your ID." I explined that unfortunately that this was news to me. No matter what I said to point out how this was at odds with everything else that had happened at this point, I got that phrase repeated back to me. I gave up and asked to be put through to cancellations as there wasn't any point now in opening the account, and got put through to someone else who told me that my ID was confirmed, the previous girl was talking complete horseshit and that all they were waiting for was the letter with my signature, which must have got lost in the post. She agreed that it was now too late to get a functioning account, apologised and deleted my application.

Twenty minutes later I get a response from the email enquiry telling me that I must go into a branch with 2 forms of ID before anything can happen. o_O

Nationwides complaint number does not work.

To make things funnier, my boyfriend went into the branch to open an account for himself (which is what I really should have done I guess) and although he managed to get one open they wouldn't take a cheque that he had to open it with because their systems were down and the girl said that it was "entirely likely that something would go wrong with your money." I do not recommend Nationwide under any circumstances.

I apologise for anyone that actually read that but I have an exam tomorrow and this has been stressing me out all day, glad to get it all out!

[framheim]

that story scares me as a i have a mortgage application going through with nationwide right now that needs to be completed pretty swiftly or i'll be homeless. hmmm.

i can confirm that when you phone them they can be pretty crap. i had good service on the phone but they keep putting me through to the wrong people which can be quite frustrating.

[Snowball]

Yeah, when the first girl put me through to the second and I asked to make sure I was through to cancellations she sounded shocked and asked what exactly I needed help with so I think I had perhaps been put through to the wrong place but it turned out she could help anyway.

Best of luck with your mortgage, I'm sure it will be fine and mine is just a case of different departments not being on the same page.

[RossP]

I've been fairly lucky with my Nationwide current acccount and mortgage, as my mates mum works in the Elgin branch; which made everything run really smoothly.

Don't get me started on Bank of Scotland though!! Glad I got out of there last year

[Memphis Skyline]

Sh*t! I rent with APL - have done for a few years with few problems. But I expect to be moving out next year and that really worries me. How much are they doing you for?

We've kept our place clean and tidy too and I imagine we'd spend a day cleaning before we left. I really really REALLY hate being ripped off.

What's getting on your tits today? Get it off your chest here. You'll feel better.

I just got a letter from Aberdeen Property Leasing as they've done an inspection on a flat I moved out of a couple weeks ago and wanted to let me know how much they are taking out of my Security Deposit. Now I was under the impression that a security deposit was in case anything got broken etc. and they had to repair or replace it. However I did also realise I needed to return the place in the same state I got it in, so I and 4 other people rolled our sleeves up and spend an entire day cleaning the place. So according to this letter I got, things they are going to charge me for include:

* I accidentally left a carrier bag hanging in a cupboard which had a few more carrier bags in it and they are charging me for removal of item!

* 1 fused lightbulb

* A "residue" mark INSIDE the drawer of a unit in the living room.

* A couple of the windows dirty on the outside

* Some tiny spatter marks above the cooker

* There was a tiny wee bit of washing powder in the powder drawer of the washing machine

Plus a whole 3 PAGE LIST list of other things that I personally cleaned and know were clean, like "residue" on kitchen cupboard doors, "residue" on the bathroom mirror and the hall carpets, dusty skirting boards etc. What an absolute bunch of cretins, this is just a blatant attempt to screw me out of even more money, as they have done all year. That place was spotless. Also they are charging me for peeling paint in the bathroom, which I called their office about and tried to have adressed, as the bathroom fan didn't work and they had fitted a smoke detector right outside the bathroom door which went off with steam, so you couldn't leave the door open after a shower or the fire alarm would go off, leading the bathroom to be really damp. However they didn't bother sending anyone to even look at it.

I can absolute categorically state that Aberdeen Property Leasing are one of the worst companies I have ever had to deal with, they are utterly, utterly unhelpful in every single aspect of leasing, their management are surly, unhelpful, miserable, awkward and not even slightly interested in your rights as a tenant. I have leased with them for a year, and since the very first day I have had nothing but trouble with them. I absolutely implore every single person who reads this to never ever, have anything to do with them, ever, ever, ever.

Phew.

[Chris]

I'm pretty sure APL have been slated on here in the past on more than one occasion. General opinion seems to be that they're utter gash.

As for Nationwide, my recent re-mortgage went through without a hitch and my girlfriend has 2 bank accounts with them and doesn't seem to have any problems. So you'll probably be fine Dave.

[framheim]

I'm pretty sure APL have been slated on here in the past on more than one occasion. General opinion seems to be that they're utter gash.

As for Nationwide, my recent re-mortgage went through without a hitch and my girlfriend has 2 bank accounts with them and doesn't seem to have any problems. So you'll probably be fine Dave.

i'm just worried about the timescale is all. our remortgage with them was fine but they tell me it takes upto 6 weeks for the money to be in place when porting and adding to your mortgage for a purchase. we have under 3. yikes!

[Guest idol_wild]

Women. ..

Amen to that one!

[Lemonade]

sound like they're being a bit dodgy to me. try writing a formal letter of complaint to them and inform them that a copy of their letter and your contract is in the hands of your solicitor along with written statements from those who helped clean the property as to the state it was in when you left.

how much money are we talking about here if you don't mind me asking?

None of that sounds anything more than normal wear & tear or is expressly not what a deposit is meant to cover.

Did you take a detailed set of photos upon moving-in/moving out? They make great evidence.

Refuse it & if they don't return your full deposit, complain to the council & take them to the small claims court. You will win.

As for APL being a shower of incompetent cunts - Yup, first class with bar!

Sh*t! I rent with APL - have done for a few years with few problems. But I expect to be moving out next year and that really worries me. How much are they doing you for?

We've kept our place clean and tidy too and I imagine we'd spend a day cleaning before we left. I really really REALLY hate being ripped off.

I don't know exactly how much it is yet - they have 675 of my money and they're going to calculate how much it is going to cost them to clean the 'residue' from the sink, bath, shower door etc. I wouldn't think it would be much considering they were already clean but hey. Unfortunately I don't have photos as I didn't think this was going to be a problem, that'll teach me.

I have some other good stories about APL if you care to read on! Damn I love this rant thread already!

Before we actually got the flat, after we had viewed it I called them the next morning to tell them we were interested and to ask how to go about applying. I got this really, really crabbit woman who told me that there were other people viewing it that day, and if we wanted it we had to go on with the deposit and a month's rent right there and then, and they would phone the other people and cancel the viewings. I thought this was a little immoral, but fuck it I needed somewhere to stay, so I agreed to do that. She also told me they would have to run a credit check and get references for me, which I had to pay for! The princely sum of 120. So I had to go in with 675 deposit, 675 rent and 120 'admin fee' - a grand total of 1470.

However I did say to her - and this is the important part - if I give you that 1470, and the credit checks or references come back bad, how much of that money will I get back? To my utter amazement, she said "Nothing. If it comes back bad you lose that money". So I pretty much told her to fuck off, but she persuaded me somehow to apply, saying that theese things rarely come back bad, and you can choose who the references come from. So I went in with the 1470, but before I handed it over I again queried whether this money would be returned to me if the checks came back bad. She then just got really pissy with me and said "Why would they come back bad? If you think you've got bad credit then don't apply for the flat. You're wasting my time I've cancelled viewings for other people so that you could apply for this" etc etc. I explained that my credit and my references would be fine, however with such a big sum of money I just wanted to be absolutely sure, as if I lose that I don't have any more money, and I woul be totally fucked. So after much negotiation, (mostly me pointing out that I'm not paying rent on a place I don't get, plus the deposit is refundable anyway, it's a deposit, it's not their money to keep) I managed to get them to agree that if the references came back wrong, I would only pay the deposit and rent for the amount of time they kept it off the market for me while they were running the background checks, eg. if i took a week I would pay 1 weeks rent, and they would keep 1 week of the deposit, which was fair enough however they were quite happy to fuck me out of nearly a grand and a half until I argued with them. Thankfully the credit checks came back fine but that set alarms bells off straight away, all it would have taken is for them to say they weren't happy with one of my references, which I wouldn't know as I wasn't allowed to see them, and they could have done me out of that money, and then given it to someone else.

Lucky vs APL round 3 to come later....

[Scootray]

Please stop telling stories about APL. I'm with them and you've got me concerned now...

[framheim]

that stories even worse! what balls that company have!

not that it matters now but they surely have no right to claim rent for a place you're not living in! it's their decision to take it off the market not yours. when you apply to rent a property it's just that, an application and they can take a number of applications from people and pick the most approprate renter. you shouldn't have to hand over a deposit or rent until an rental contract is signed(you've not mentioned if this was the case).

good luck min!

[Lemonade]

that stories even worse! what balls that company have!

not that it matters now but they surely have no right to claim rent for a place you're not living in! it's their decision to take it off the market not yours. when you apply to rent a property it's just that, an application and they can take a number of applications from people and pick the most approprate renter. you shouldn't have to hand over a deposit or rent until an rental contract is signed(you've not mentioned if this was the case).

good luck min!

Nope. I gave them the rent and despoit and the money to do the checks, and a week later I went in and signed the papers once the references came back OK. (It was helped by the fact that I wrote one of the references myself )

[mcsheepie]

Ah good, a rant thread.

I applied to open a current account with Nationwide online as I'm off on holiday soon and they don't charge to use your card abroad. This was over a month before we're due to leave, plenty of time.

The website said that they would only need to send me a letter to get my signature, and that they would verify my ID themselves and that they would be in touch if somehow it didn't work, which was fine. I then received the letter asking me for my signature stating that when I returned the letter signed "and the documents we need" they would open my account. Problem being that there was no indication of what these documents were. I went back to the website, double checked the ID requirements and sure enough, no documents required. So I signed the letter and sent it back.

Twenty minutes later I get a response from the email enquiry telling me that I must go into a branch with 2 forms of ID before anything can happen. o_O

Strange. I also applied for this card cos of the no charges on holiday thing, about 2 weeks ago and I worried if i'd get it in time (off tomorrow). I applied online, the letter arrived saying that i should sign it, and it also had that bit about ID. I went to the branch in town, said i needed it quickly and queried the ID bit. They told me they'd take my application, process it for me and that i didn't need to show any ID. The card arrived a couple of days later. The only problem i have with them is i have nothing that has an account number on it anywhere so i can't do the online banking bit yet.

[Afro Droid]

I'm pretty sure APL have been slated on here in the past on more than one occasion.

Yup, by me. They raped me for my deposit about 7 years ago, for similiar "residue" issues (the flat was a minky shithole when I moved in, and nothing was much different), I may as well have not bothered with their inventory, because they just made up stuff that was never on it in the first place!

But by far the worse thing was APL supplying the Hydro with incorrect readings off the meter after I moved out, and disputing them with me, to the tune of a 700 bill (essentially a year's plus worth of energy for the tenant that moved in after me). I ended paying about half on it after an energy watch-dog type-organisation was brought in to mediate. On this issue, someone at APL literally told me to "fuck off".

Avoid. Avoid Avoid.

Same goes for Belvoir, my missus had big problems with them in her old place - including human shite being pumped into her bathroom from the flat next door...

[Afro Droid]

Ah, fun with banks.

...or Cunts, as I like to call them. I find it harder and harder as time goes by not the chuck a brick through the window of Lloyds fucking TSB every time I walk past my branch. Currently in the midst of trying to claim back 500+ in charges dating back to the start of the year. Lost my temper multiple times, which I know doesn't help, but after months of going back and forth between different lines and branches frustration takes over. Financial Ombudsman is involved now...sounds harsh, but I really want some fucker to get sacked over this...

[Guest idol_wild]

Overdraft fees won't be reimbursed for a long time yet - there is an ongoing court case about it and the banks (cunts) are appealing all the time, mainly to delay the process.

I will be due around 600 - 1000 from Lloyds TSB. Thing is, I applied for an overdraft so many times but they always refused me one because they knew it was an easy way to get money from me for nothing.

I was too lazy to switch banks.

[Afro Droid]

To quote you... I think "Cunts" is the phrase I'd use too.

I argued with them that they were keeping me in a cycle of debt and refused to act to help me out of it, instead they started levying 20 PER DAY charges for being overdrawn. They wouldn't even agree to let me pay the charges back gradually, which would have been fair in my eyes and would allow me to manage the account more effectively. Then promises were made about charges being refunded that were never followed through on, instead the buck was endlessly passed.

A friend who used to work for TSB told me that they do this all the time for pure profit, staff are encouraged to do these types of things to customers, TSB make most of their money this way. Bastards.

[Lemonade]

I actually have to give Royal Bank Of Scotland a little bit of credit over this matter, although I've had problems with them in the past, if I go overdrawn they phone me and tell me and give me the chance to move some money across from my savings account over the phone. Also on the couple of occasions I've been charged for going overdrawn and it's been their mistake they've refunded it straight away, no arguments.

However they are still cunts. I've had plenty of problems with them in the past as well.

[Le Stu]

Halifax Bank of Scotland are just merely dicks. They refunded me 70 (2x35) since both were debits less than a fiver. However, then I got stung for 35 again for a 15 debit overdraw and a 28 'monthly charge' on top of that.

I will be sifting through my account one Sunday in the future to itemise everything they're going to give me back!

[Neil]

I can't help noticing that most people that complain about banks are the same people that go over their overdrafts and account limits.

I'm with Llloyds TSB and have never had a single problem with them.

[Ross.]

Halifax Bank of Scotland are just merely dicks. They refunded me 70 (2x35) since both were debits less than a fiver. However, then I got stung for 35 again for a 15 debit overdraw and a 28 'monthly charge' on top of that.

I will be sifting through my account one Sunday in the future to itemise everything they're going to give me back!

I too suffered an incident very similar to this one, except my initial debit overdraw was 12 and the second was something like 1.50. Losing 63 when I really didn't need to (not that I'm blaming anyone other than myself) really pissed me off...