Has anyone else used bookasurvey.co.uk and had problems?

Plus

There's a few things about bookasurvey that were a bit fishy:

• Everyone here seems to have booked Hunter and Mason, but they weren't in the directory of surveyors that I could see (and I did go through the whole list)
• The list had people like gas engineers. energy assessors and roofers - not just surveyors. Making up numbers?
• The capitalisation of the list was a bit dubious - every listing Had Every Word Starting With A Capital Letter And Only One Capital Letter. That includes words like Epc (should be EPC). That's not a major red flag but it suggests the list has been scraped from somewhere else and had some program try to clean it up. (I did google some of the words but didn't find where it had been copied from, so I could be wrong about this)
• How come they're 'fully booked' when they claimed to be offering business to over 100 firms? Every surveyor in the country is fully booked at a time of housing market stagnation?

I could be wrong but perhaps things are not what they seem...

cbw999

Hi I've also been scammed at the beginning of the month, I made an initial payment of £335 but they said they couldn't do the survey for at least two weeks, and said they'd give me a full refund which they never did, then about two weeks later they took £500 out of my account! I knew I couldn't have been the only one scammed, as the website looked so genuine. I have reported it to the police so I wonder if that's why the sites gone down?. I felt so stupid but when your buying a house every penny counts so that's why I chose them.

trigger_mike

I notice the website has completely gone now, it won't even load up.

scammed123

Yeah, a relief to see I am not the only one. Same story two payments before Christmas, waiting for Nationwide resolution.

Anyone who gets any joy with a police investigation (I havnt) please get in touch.

Cheers

Morg989

I purchased a home buyer report on the 14th of November, £320.00.
Website claimed no payment would be taken until the surveyor was allocated yet the payment went out of my account straight away.
Used live chat to confirm the report would be with me within seven days.
Even had a courtesy call the next day from a female to confirm they had allocated a surveyor.

Recieved a barely audible voicemail a few days later from 'Ben davies'.
Very posh sounding bloke and we'll spoken, from what I could make out.

Two weeks pass without further correspondence.
'Ben' would not answer the phone. I rang him over 50 times in two weeks out of frustration. He would turn his phone off to avoid my calls. Even more frustrating when he would be active on wattsapp but wouldn't pick up my calls.


He finally gave me a call after I sent a aggressive text.
Claiming the report was complete and would be with me via email the next day.

In the meantime, the bookasurvey website has seemingly shutdown. The live chat doesn't work. No response to calls/voicemails and emails.

Finally my report came through 3 weeks after I paid.

He had booked the keys out and been to the property as the report contained photos.

The estate agent commented that the lad who came in was very very young! Looked like a kid!

I chalked it off as a poor customer experience and as I had my report I'd just forget about the experience.

Forward to Dec 13th. Bookasurvey have taken a further £600 from my account.

I've managed to get a refund from the bank while they investigate it. I've also reported them to action fraud.

I'd would love to catch up with 'Ben davies'

At first I put the shoddy service down to a heavy workload but it obviously a big scam with 'Ben davies' involved under the bookasurvey guise

HampshireH

If the agents can describe him its worth showing them the few ben davies people have found on linkedin etc and seeing if its one of them. Least you can then refer back to whatever professional body / other employement they are with. This whole business seems a bit of a side thing to their day jobs by the sounds of it

scammed123

Having trouble with Nationwide, they have credited me for the initial payment but are not dealing with the second payment taken because I already "had a relationship" with the company. Has anybody had similar issues with their bank? I am currently going through complaints.

I sent a letter to their registered address, shock returned undeliverable. This was the end point for citizens advice except for take nationwide to the financial ombudsmen.

Has anybody had any progress with action fraud?

Cheers.

JDavies83

I arranged my survey through them on the 6th December, received my confirmation email and that was it, they took the £325 and the only time I heard from them again was when I emailed to cancel I did get a reply confirming this and then back to nothing. I cleared that account pretty quickly so they couldn’t take a 2nd payment thankfully,
I’m with Halifax and they have given me the money back luckily & also reported to action fraud but haven’t had any response.

trigger_mike

I also reported it to action fraud but never had any correspondence back from them, not even a acknowledgement.

HampshireH

I've reported to action fraud before. Never had a reply & don't kkow amyone who ever has when they have reported something to them