Rentguard Referencing Avis 

Absolutely Useless Company

The didn't properly take into account my full wages / income. Failed me without properly discussing it with me and ignoring information I provided on the form.

It was a massive shock to be told I'd failed and when I called to discuss it, they told me that they hadn't looked at my payslips. When I complained to supervisor I was told they weren't taking my income into account as my hours varied. I explained that if they'd bothered to discuss it with me, I could have told them I had a guaranteed minimum hours contract.

There is zero communication, improper review of evidence and referencing appears to be a tick box exercise as opposed to a proper investigation into propriety. However if it is to be tick box exercise (understandable in this day and age), then it should be done properly instead of with numerous errors.

Absolute Mess

I cannot speak for what they are like from a landlord's perspective but as a prospective tenant they are dreadful. I filled out their form completely, part of which requires details for my employer so they can confirm my employment. After filling this out they then sent an email to me asking to confirm that I work there, it makes no sense!

Their form has no indication of what fields are required or not and clearly you can submit the form without information they "require". It seems like they want the process to go wrong so they can charge for a second reference.

It took me 3 days and over 15 calls to get through to someone so they could email the correct person in my company.

It should not be this hard and stressful to get a reference.

If you have any other choice of company then please avoid them at all costs.

Rent Guard are theives that provide inaccurrate fact reguarding financial details and dont follow up for a full report.
We have used them countless time through Open Rent and have been surprised the number of applications that have been declined based on the info provided by Rent Guard, this then requires a second reference for a guarantor and another fee to Rent Guard.
Stay clear of them.

Rarely had to deal with such a terrible company. Maybe never in my life. Spent 2 days doing basically their job as they couldn't send e-mails to the employer and letting agent. They couldn't run a credit check ( have mine with Experian and looks good) they even called my wife workplace, HR was in a meeting, tried to call them back twice: no answer.
In the process, there is also a possibility to check your bank account automatically....be aware, they even ask you your PASSCODE along with sort code and account number.
After my last email reminding them AGAIN to send ref request to my letting agent, they just closed the case as "failed" - funny enough- I received 40 mins later a reply "I sent it just now".

I am with no debts, good income, and enough savings to buy.
Wonder what they ll do with your data.

Absolutely awful service. Poor customer experience, with every agent I called being extremely rude, bored and uninterested in helping. They failed my partner and accused him of not being able to afford the rent, even though he pays way more currently. They seemed to not look at the bank statements and all of the documentation provided to prove this...They also didn’t log when my employers and landlords replied to the reference check, slowing the process down until I called them to chase.

I could not be more disappointed in the company and am now unsure as to whether we will be able to get our tenancy due to the appalling service of Rent guard.

This company needs to be changed fast and start helping tenants in an otherwise quite exciting time of their lives! I have hated the whole process.

Cant even begin to say how incompetent this company is. Its terrible for tenants and landlords. To name a few things they did:

1. Have been the only referencing company so far to not be able to tie me to my address and require proof of address
2. Mistook me for my accountant and called up asking me if I would rent to me, even though I had provided my name and telephone number on the form (i could have easily lied and given them a false reference)
3. After sending over income reports and invoices for the year of self-employment, they sent a report to my landlord saying i was unemployed with no income coming in and declined my application. Luckily my landlord saw more sense and went through my income report manually and approved me that way- which is a waste of time and energy considering they're paying for a service they aren't receiving.

I really recommend that Open Rent goes with another company for referencing and warn all landlords against using them.

I have used these guys for 4 years (Via Openrent)
ANd they have not let me down and always go the extra mile to protect the landlords.

I know it can be annoying for prospective tenants that are filtered out by this company.

But you have to appreciate there are two sides to tenant referencing. The tenant side, & the landlord side. Better to be safe : ) (as a landlord)

Incompetent staff, asking for irrelevant documents and too much information. For example, they asked me for proof of address after I had already submitted a reference from my landlord. Absolutely horrendous and invasive.

Absolutely awful company were horrible every time they called! A very rude Stuart didn’t do any checks properly and because the phone line at my company didn’t work for one hour they failed my referencing even though I have a perfect credit score, provided them with payslips, bank statements and by work contract as well as showing my current bank balance in excess of £50,000 they still failed me and told the landlord that I was high-risk and that I should not be accepted. Awful company hope to never do with them again absolutely useless business

My partner and I provided all the details they asked for and we still had to call and email them a total of 5 times as they claimed to contact our landlords and employers, when in fact they had not. After a week, our potential landlord was told we failed the referencing but neither side was told why. We both have steady income, references available and gave all the information they wanted but the staff were rude and unhelpful, and it turns out they ran a credit check on the wrong address. An extremely frustrating process, which almost left us homeless in the end due to the incompetency of this awful company.

We've used Rentguard for the past five years and they've always been fair to both Landlord and Tenant. When we've had to make a claim, they've handling it promptly and paid out for the full claim amount.

Failed their referencing despite having a very healthy financial status. Their incompetent staff seems not to read the bank statements nor to be able to just run a simple credit check. They even claimed that I could afford only a rent well below the one I am paying nowadays by Direct Debit, clearly reflected in the statements!
They didn't try to contact me or clarify the situation before sending the report, which resulted in my potential landlord rejecting my application in Openrent.
After a few emails back and forth, and my accountant calling them, we managed to have the report amended accordingly, but instead of being proactive and helpful to try to reinstate my right to rent the property (contacting the landlord directly and explaining their mistake, for example) they just washed away any responsibility in the situation putting it down to Openrent and the landlord.
They shouldn't be allowed to operate since they are meant to make decisions that affect people's lives and they disregard the responsibility that comes with this and ignore the consequences derived from their judgement errors.

Don’t have a clue what they are doing. They asked us for so much information in so much detail, to them ask for the same things over and over again individually dragging the referencing over 2 weeks. Awful service, no customer service or customer care. Quick enough to take money but will take up to 10+ days to return

They incompetent, unprofessional and racist. I had my reference application fail. They stated that I have no valid bank account and my work contract is 0 zero hrs which were false. I called them on phone and they told me again that my bank account is valid on their system but it was system error that’s why it appears not valid. She told me they are going to amend it, correct the mistake and send a new result to the landlord by the closed of the day but they did. I think they are the worst institution in Uk and bias towards blacks.

the worst service ever seen.
They don't take in consideration the documents you provide. they contacted my office for references by email and didn't wait for an answer and my references process failed. After asking for explanations they changed the version of the facts and made up other excuses. They are always contradictory in their answers. There are so many other better services, they just want to earn on honest people.

Terrible experience with them. They send you an email asking to call them, and ask for more documents. We had no notification of what was going on then and we lost the flat even though we provided more than what they asked. We worked and lived in the UK before. Please keep in mind if you'll have business with Rentguard, be prepared to the worst, not a professional behavior.

Sloppy job and irresponsible team. Probably deliberately bad just to force you to call them on their expensive service line.

During a tenant referencing process, Rentguard ignored the documentation I had provided, failing the reference check against their own guidelines, which I actually had to explain to them on the phone. After the landlord complained and provided them with supporting documentation (the same that I sent to them), they passed it. During the entire process, they were entirely unresponsive by email to force you to dial them on their service line (nobody picks up on the free line, even after minutes).

In the end, the real referencing cost was at least 25% higher than they had advertised, and the stress was not worth it.

Had the displeasure of dealing with them twice, as a tenant. Terrible communication. Zero transparency. I emailed them to complain and they just stopped replying. If a prospective landlord ever asks me to use their referencing for a third time, I will refuse and suggest they use any other service instead. Total waste of time, and huge opportunity cost. I really cannot recommend enough to stay away from them.