[dorklips]

what do we think of this ? do they have a point ?
read from bottom....






Dear ,

You seem to be jumping to all sorts of conclusions and making many wild accusations. There is NOTHING illegal about our business practices. We have been operating from many years and we have many, many happy clients. You are free to report us to whoever you thing appropriate but we can assure you our business will continue and will be up an running for many more years to come.

Hope you feel better soon.

Form All the staff at Spacelet
----- Original Message -----
From:
To: Spacelet
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 10:02 PM
Subject: Re: Your Gumtree.com ad : Double Studio


Just letting you know this email has been forwarded to the relevant authorities for investigation for scams, UK law forbids charging upfront fees and you have ripped off MANY innocent people. If you have any conscience/sense you would cease this operation or start operating legitimately, this is a VERY well known trick that you are trying on innocent people.
Prepare to be out of work you scam artist !



----- Original Message ----
From: Spacelet <info@spacelet.net>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, 5 December, 2007 10:53:13 AM
Subject: Re: Your Gumtree.com ad : Double Studio


Hi,



Thank you for your enquiry.



The studio you enquired about is still available and we also have a selection of other properties too. If you would like us to make an appointment for you to view this property and see a selection of other properties, you would first have to come to our office and join the agency.



We are an agency and we charge a fee for our services. We have several properties in London and the surrounding areas. Our properties are very competitively priced because we offer landlords a free service and in return they keep the rents low.



If you would like to see a selection of our properties within your specified criteria, you have to come to our office and join the agency. Our opening hours are Monday to Friday: 9.30am to 7pm and 10am to 4pm on Saturdays. Our joining fees are: £59 for one person, £79 for two persons and £35 per person for three or more persons. Once you join the agency we can make appointments for you to view properties direct with the landlord. The service is valid for 3 months and you can see as many properties as you wish during this period.



If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me via email: info@spacelet.net or telephone on: 020 8743 0043. Our address is: 1 Frithville Gardens , Shepherds Bush, London W12 7JG.



We look forward to meeting you.



Regards,



Claire





----- Original Message -----

> Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 19:17:33 +0000
> From:
> To: info@spacelet.net
> Subject: Your Gumtree.com ad : Double Studio
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> Hi there
> Im interested in renting this property.
> Is it possible to arrange a viewing over the weekend of 14-16 Dec ?
> Also could you please tell me if there is any possibility of a parking permit ?
> Regards

[Bluey]

Yes, it is illegal for letting agents to charge up-front fees.
Yes, it's also correct that those who do face little risk of being prosecuted.

The info below gives you a full overview and tells you how you can take redress.

I have been in contact with Trading Standards officers for a number of local councils. Here are two responses from their enforcement officers who regularly deal with complaints from tenants using appointment making accommodation agencies in London.

The tenants tend to be disappointed with the service they receive after payment of the fee and reckon they'd have been better off saving their fee and just finding accommodation either directly with landlords or using a letting agent that actually has properties on their books that they manage, (rather than just sending tenants to viewings that they could have arranged themselves).

This is why the Gumtree stay safe tips recommend that tenants never pay upfront fees to agencies and just use those that don't charge for access to listings or viewings but only charge fees after the tenant has viewed and wishes to move into the accommodation.

http://www.gumtree.com/help/stay_safe#item73

**************************************************

"Many thanks for your e-mail to xxxxxx Trading Standards regarding Spacelet.

Unfortunately, as I suspect you are aware, Letting Agents are
particularly under-regulated in the UK. In fact the only applicable
piece of legislation at present is the Accommodation Agencies Act and
that was drafted in 1953! As you point out in your e-mail, this
creates a couple of offences, both of which are very tightly drafted and
therefore very limited in their scope.

The first (and the one that you refer to) makes it an offence to demand
or accept payment of any sum of money in consideration of registering,
or undertaking to register, the name or requirements of any person
seeking the tenancy of a house. This means that an agency cannot take
money off me for simply registering my details, but what happens if the
agency undertakes to do more than that, and also arranges appointments
for me with prospective landlords?

I was involved in a case a number of years ago which tested that
scenario. The agency argued in Court that the fee they charged was for
arranging appointments and therefore fell outside the remit of the
Accommodation Agencies Act. Unfortunately, the Magistrates agreed and
passed a not guilty verdict. The Authority that I was with at the time
sought a legal opinion on this ruling and was advised that given the
wording in the Act (which is very specific), it was inevitable that the
same judgement would be passed in any future cases - in other words we
had no chance of winning in cases where the facts were similar.

Having spoken to people who have previously complained about the
service that Spacelet provide, it seems clear that whatever else they do, they do actually make appointments for prospective tenants to view
properties. This being the case it is unlikely that we could make out
an offence under section 1 of the Accommodation Agencies Act.

Unfortunately the 1953 Act was drafted in response to very specific
practices that were prevalent at the time and doesn't allow for any
element of "future proofing", i.e. it didn't take into account any
possible future practices that may be just as objectionable. This has
meant therefore that our hands are pretty much tied and all that we
have been able to do in the past is to point people in the direction of
Estate Agents who only levy a charge when they have found a suitable
property.

This situation however may change at the end of this year when the
Unfair Commercial Practices Directive is implemented into UK law. This
will create a duty on traders not to trade unfairly and will contain a
number of offences that are drafted very widely indeed. It is likely
that this will give us greater scope to deal with agencies that seek to
exploit people who, for whatever reason, are unable to make use of the
main, high street estate agents.

With regard to your specific question about redress, at present the
only route open to tenants is via civil (as opposed to criminal) law. If
they can argue that the service provided was essentially not up to standard, then they may be able to establish that there has been a breach of contract. This may arise for example if all of the appointments
arranged are to view properties that fall a long way below the standard that a tenant has made clear they are interested in. The tenant would, in the first instance need to write to the agency explaining why they believe
there to have been a breach of contract and setting out exactly what
they want the agency to do - i.e. refund the fee paid. If the agency
refuses then the next step would be to consider issuing a claim through
the County Court (Small Claims Court).

If you are aware of any tenants who find themselves in circumstances
similar to the above, then I would be very interested to hear from
them.In general, Trading Standards departments enforce criminal legislation, but there may be a civil law route open to us via the Enterprise Act. Under certain circumstances, we can apply for injunctive action if a trader is carrying out practices that are detrimental to consumers (as a whole). It may be that sufficient evidence of repeated breaches ofcontract similar to the above would give us grounds to explore that route. It should be noted however that this would not be the same as
taking action on behalf of the tenants who would still need to pursue
their own separate claims."

*****************************

"I agree with the advice given by the Trading Standards Officer in response to you e-mail. As the Accommodation Agencies Act 1953 does not provide enough scope to cover “mal practices”, I am afraid we may have to wait for a better and more detailed piece of legislation to replace the Accommodation Agencies Act 1953.

Otherwise, for the meantime, I agree the Unfair Commercial Practice Directive (to be implemented in the near future) may bring a new range of measures to tackle unfair business practise. It may be possible to use this in conjunction with the Enterprise Act to improve consumer protection by giving enforcers strengthened powers to obtain court orders against businesses that fail to comply with their legal obligations to consumers.

It is advisable to wait for the new legislation before taking this matter further. In the meantime I would suggest you can write to your MP and maybe forward your concerns to the Cabinet Office in order to help the process of legislation.

Please find the details of the Better Regulation Commission (BRC):

Email: commission@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk
Phone: 020 7276 2143
Fax: 020 7276 2042

Better Regulation Commission Secretariat
Cabinet Office
6th Floor
22 Whitehall
London SW1A 2WH"

[dorklips]

Thanks Bluey for confirming my stance, I often wonder if anyone has taken the matter further and have these rip off merchants out of business or at least give them some kind of insecurity ?
Is it worth pursuing ?

[Bluey]

No idea. If the Trading Standards people haven't been directly successful (though they are keen to try out the new legislation when it's in force). Put it down to experience and move on? I mean, it's not great that there are bad businesses that flourish in the country but then tenants also make themselves suckers by being taken in with ads that are too good to be true.

We did have someone on this forum who claimed to have got a refund of their fee from an appointment making accommodation agency in London after threatening them with legal action. I'll see if I can find it. Unfortunately, we also have a lot of fibbers on the forums so who knows.

The Trading Standards people have given info how to pursue it as a civil matter and are probably amenable to being approached for advice or can tell you if the new laws are in place.

Those affected can take a look at the Money Claims online site which is the website for small claims via HM Court service. They have a template on their site, a 'letter before action' for use first before launching legal action. The risk is that you lose your fee or that you win the case but then have to go through additional hoops to enforce it.

You could bring it to the attention of the local MP, see what Citizens Advice could recommend, speak to Shelter on their free advice line for tenants, etc.

[Bluey]

Here's the thread. Have a look at all her postings.

http://forums.gumtree.com/viewtopic.php?p=462819&highlight=#462819

[dorklips]

further to the above...here is more:




Dear ,

You are obviously confused about how the law works. Laws are not legislated in the business forum to prescribe what is allowed. Do you not think this would be a little impracticle taking into account the many many types of businesses there are and their procedure? Laws are legislated to prescribe what is not allowed and if you think we are in breach of any law then it is up to you or anyone who thinks we are breaking the law to provide evidence and the relevant legislation.

If you look at the dates that these spurious postings have be posted on thrashy forums such as Gumtree where anyone in the world can write anything they like and it will be published (whether it is true or not) you will see that quite a lot of them have been posted a few years ago. Do you seriously think if there was anything illegal in our business practices and these apparent complaints are legimate, we would still be in business? Try thinking before you jump to conclusions!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year fro all at

Spacelet


----- Original Message -----
From:
To: Spacelet
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 1:09 PM
Subject: Re: Your Gumtree.com ad : Double Studio


Dear Spacelet,
If you are so confident about the legitimacy of your operation I think you should provide the MANY accommodation forums with evidence suggesting the UK law allows charging a fee for viewing. MANY clients have been ripped off and have posted their concern warning others and this correspondence confirms all their experiences. Also beware that false client satisfaction reports are easily spotted...much like your scams.
Happy scamming, hope it wont continue much longer.

[Bluey]

Please report any adverts that you encounter from agents that charge upfront fees to Gumtree Admin so they can be removed.

Use the link at the side of the advert or contact Gumtree admin via the

http://www.gumtree.com/help/stay_safe#item85