Regus - London, Old StreetAvis 

Front desk people, particularly Ayat and Stephanie, are super responsive and helpful.

Their customer service is a joke. I keep making my payments on time but there is a glitch in their system and they can't find the payments so they hit me with late fees. I keep raising it with customer service and they don't respond. Jokers.

I was looking for a dedicated desk in a co-working space and visited four Regus sites before deciding on the Old Street location. Despite the variety of building types, it was interesting to see that the coworking offices are almost identical, in terms of décor and size. The desks are all the same, and a little on the small size at 120 x 60cm. The lobby and kitchen at Old Street are nice though, and there’s ample bike storage which is easily accessible from street level, and there are decent showers.

I terminated my contract after two months at Old Street when I discovered a co-working space next door with a bright, airy and spacious office with a much nicer vibe. The Regus offices are claustrophobic and stale in comparison. There was also a damp smell in the corridors and stains on the carpet due to leaking pipes from the flats above. They also have safety restrictions on electrical items you can use in the office and in the kitchen (which my current office doesn't have), and rules on not being able to store dry foods in the kitchen, so you have to carry things like cereal boxes and coffee equipment through three sets of locked doors each time. Little things, but they do add up.

Although the staff on site were great, I wasn’t happy with the service overall, beginning with the discussions with the Area Manager prior to starting. During our many chats, two additional fees were never mentioned, despite asking about extras specifically. It was not until I read the contract that I found out about the ‘activation’ and ‘restoration’ fees. This is basically extra money to Regus for nothing, and it’s not a good look. My current place has no such hidden fees – the price you see is the price you pay.

It also seems that they try to catch you out wherever possible. You’re automatically opted into extras like the £30/m for unlimited coffee and the faster WiFi (which you don't need). If you want to end your contract at the end of a particular month you need terminate by the end of the previous month, and if you delay by a day you’ll automatically get billed for an additional month. They also try to hold onto your deposit for as long as possible. When you terminate your contract, your refund is not automatically processed – you need to manually request it on the system (no one told me), and if your payment details haven’t been entered, the system doesn’t notify you. It was only when I enquired a month later that I was told they were missing, and that it would be another 30 days for the payment to be processed, plus up to 7 days for the payment to come through. The funds finally arrived two months after my contract ended, after a lot of chasing. Given retailers can transfer funds back into your account within a day after returning an item, there’s no reason why this should take so long. The whole system seems a bit last century, and it’s just not a good way to treat your customers. Generally it feels like the company is too big to care about its customers, or to make much of an effort to retain them.

Regus waited 9 months after approving our business account to inform us we couldn't use the virtual address as our Company House address. We were approved by their compliance team after presenting the business address had been updated on Company House.

Since then they have appologised for the fault, but refused to cancel our contract. The team I have been speaking to have been incredibly unproffesional, after acknowledging their appology they then said the following "My apology was simply to express that you misunderstood the compliance check to register your details with Companies House.". Incredibly rude and unproffesional, I'm now going through legal action.

I do not recommend Regus, they are another big corporate attacking small businesses.