Absolutely dreadful & disgusting company

Countrywide are without a doubt the worst estate agency in Britain. Here is a breakdown of only a small selection of their worst crimes for the year I rented from them (the full list would require a series of novels)

They continuously sent sensitive and private information to the email address of the previous tenants, not us, and we were lucky that we know the previous tenants because countrywide continously made this error.

When we moved in to the property, not only was it filthy but it was also INFESTED with disgusting roach like insects, dead and alive ones, larvae and adults. Countrywide refused to do anything about this, and insisted that WE pay to get rid of them. After all that, and they have the nerve to charge us for cleaning the property when we moved out, even though we left it spotless compared to when we moved in!

10 weeks after moving out, and we still have no deposit back. We are passed on from person to person, each time being told the person I need to speak to is "busy" and he'll call back, and of course he never does!!

The customer service team are slow, and constantly "lose" important information. I requested them to send out a copy of our deposit certificate, which we STILL don't have as it "had been marked down that it has been done but it seems like it hasn't". When we were applying for the flat, and handed in all of our bank details, personal information, guarantor information etc, we were told in a weeks time that we could come and sign the lease. When I phoned a week later, they said that we had never come in to hand over all of our information. They had "lost" ALL of it, our bank details, phone numbers, the lot!!

We received threatening emails (or rather the previous tenants did) about not paying rent, when we had always paid it on time. They had lost receipt of our payments.

Half way through our tenancy, a boiler man came to our door telling us that the flat below had damp and asked to see our boiler. Turns out our boiler was very slowly leaking. We reported this to countrywide, who did - you guessed it - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!! The poor people below have damp damage in their ceilings and walls, but hey, who cares - right?

I could go on more, and I will when I formally complain to the CAB for unlawfully witholding our deposit.. We were told "you have left the flat perfect and I will reccommend you get your full deposit back. Your deposit will be back in a week, 4 weeks WORST CASE SCENARIO". 10 weeks on, and I am just getting ignored.

AVOID COUNTRYWIDE. THEY SIMPLY DO NOT CARE ABOUT TENANTS OR LANDLORDS AND ARE VILE.