Amber Court Lettings

Having dealt with Amber Court once before, I did not think it a bad idea to use them again in order to find a property to rent. I was looking for a place to rent with my friend, and we are students. I called Amber Court to make a booking, and I gave them my home number so they could get back to me quickly. In hindsight I would have given them my mobile number too. We were showed round the property by Mike, who seemed friendly enough, but gave the hard sell (as is expected). He also didn't know all the details of the property, which was a little frustrating. He seemed rather flustered and short for time, and we were ushered out after five minutes of viewing the property before he dashed off. We decided we liked the property and my friend phoned Amber Court to say we would like to put in an application and pay the £100 letting agency fee. However, a day or so later, when we arrived at the letting agency we were told the 'bad news' that the property had already been let. We had been given no indication at all that this was the case, despite being in good contact with them over that short time period. They had my friend's email address and as said before my home number. I was also told that Amber Court had tried to phone my house phone, but my parents have said they did not receive any calls from Amber Court, and if they did, they didn't leave a message. I can only therefore draw from this that the letting agency made little effort to tell us that the property we were interested in had already been taken. It doesn't take much to ask for a mobile number, or send an email. Despite this, they offered to show us a different property later on in the day. We were interested, and instead of waiting for them to call us back, we walked over to this new property to check it out from the outside. Amber Court told us that this property was better than the last one: 'a nicer flat'. You can imagine my disappointment when we saw one of the windows had been smashed, and the windows were so poor there was condensation on the inside. When they called back to offer us a viewing, we had become so irritated that we said we weren't interested. It is quite clear that this letting agency is so focused on making sales and looking good as employees, they forget they are working with actual people who will become annoyed if they are messed around. My major issue is the time wasting - it was just very poor customer service. We are now looking at other properties with kind and informative agents who are approved by our university. It is also very rude that the receptionist lied to my face about calling my house phone. Needless to say I won't be bothering with Amber Court again, I have better things to do with my time.