Is House Exchange .org.uk Free?

RealGem

Hi I am on Homeswapper trying to do a swap, but I found out there's anothe rsite called House Exchange. org.uk

So I looked and it looked like it was the same sort of thing. 

But when signing up they insisted on having my phone number, so off I trotted to the Privacy page to make sure it would not be seen by other users, and I was surprised to see THIS info:

"We collect information from you:

To process your application to join House Exchange and manage your service:

your name and contact information, including your email address;

your home address and other information about your current property including features, restrictions and adaptations;

basic details regarding the new property you are seeking e.g. location, property type, number of bedrooms;

your contact preferences for other users to approach you e.g. SMS, Phone, Email;

information required to take payment for this service via PayPal for social housing residents of non-partnered landlords. Please note, only a basic payment reference is stored from PayPal. We do not have access to your payment details.

each time you search for properties you will be able to add additional search criteria to your basic search, such as adaptations to the property.

your geographical location, Local Authority and / or and Landlord (if appropriate) may be used to send appropriate service updates or surveys to you or to display relevant messages on the site itself "

"...information required to take payment for this service via PayPal for social housing residents of non-partnered landlords...."

Excuse me??!!

They want to charge me to do a Council / Housing Association swap?!

I have searched Google to try and find exactly WHAT they are charging for, but to no avail. 

There is no mention of a charge here in FAQs:
https://www.houseexchange.org.uk/advice/help/frequently-asked-questions/

Does anyone know?

Do they charge for all swaps?

Do they charge as soon as you join? Or when you try to contact someone?

If they charge for some and not others, at what point is the user told they will be charged?

... I didn't even want to give them my phone number! ...but being charged is a big NO!

Any info would be appreciated.

Thank you 

MalMonroe

Hi, this is what it says on their website -

"If your Landlord is a partner with House Exchange our service is free of charge. If not, then there is a small fee to pay. Please check with your landlord for more information.

If you have to pay a subscription fee, you are able to pay directly to access the system using either PayPal or a debit/credit card. Our current fees are as follows: 

• 3 months - £9.99
• 6 months - £14.99
• 12 months - £19.99"

More info in the following link - 

https://www.houseexchange.org.uk/advice/help/looking-to-join-house-exchange/

Hope that's helpful. 

RealGem

 MalMonroe said:

Hi, this is what it says on their website -

"If your Landlord is a partner with House Exchange our service is free of charge. If not, then there is a small fee to pay. Please check with your landlord for more information.

If you have to pay a subscription fee, you are able to pay directly to access the system using either PayPal or a debit/credit card. Our current fees are as follows: 

• 3 months - £9.99
• 6 months - £14.99
• 12 months - £19.99"

More info in the following link - 

https://www.houseexchange.org.uk/advice/help/looking-to-join-house-exchange/

Hope that's helpful. 

Thank you @MalMonroe ...I was just looking at the very page!

And I also decided not to join. 
Not just because I can't find anywhere which landlords are part of their system or not. I see you've bolded Please check with your landlord. Thank you. 

But if they are going to charge they should be providing all the information on their own website. I clicked on the Landlords tab, hoping it would give me a list of councils and HAs in their system. No. It's for private landlords to become clients of theirs. 



They also say that there's a cooling off period of 14 days...

However they state:

"3.4. For a period of fourteen (14) days from the day after the day you enter into a contract with House Exchange you may notify us that you wish to cancel the contract by contacting House Exchange at Reed House, Peachman Way, Broadland Business Park, Norwich, NR7 0WF, England, UK or by email to houseexchangehelp@clarionhg.com and the Resident Charge shall be refundable to you in full (the "Cooling-Off Period") within fourteen (14) working days. Where you have made use of the Service (Use of the service defined as logged on and carried out a search) during the Cooling-Off Period, you are expressly requesting that House Exchange start the Service straight away and you are therefore waiving your right to cancel during the Cooling-Off Period. "

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like if you USE THE SERVICE straight away, you lose the right to the cooling off period (and also the refund!)

So what is the use of a Cooling off period if you use the service and don't like it?

Given this is run by Clarion Housing, one of the worst HAs in the country, according to all the horrific reviews and news stories I found, I should not be surprised. (Trustpilot reviews averaged 4.1 out of 5 stars, whereas everywhere else they average 1.7 stars... Hmm. A red flag for fake reviews if ever I saw one).

I found a different home swapping site:
https://www.glassbob.com/
and they are free, so I'll stick to that and Homeswapper. 

sheramber

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like if you USE THE SERVICE straight away, you lose the right to the cooling off period (and also the refund!)

So what is the use of a Cooling off period if you use the service and don't like it?

It is to avoid you logging  on, find a swap then cancel without paying for the service

RealGem

sheramber said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like if you USE THE SERVICE straight away, you lose the right to the cooling off period (and also the refund!)

So what is the use of a Cooling off period if you use the service and don't like it?

It is to avoid you logging  on, find a swap then cancel without paying for the service

Thanks but in what circumstances would someone get a refund? 

Because I can't see how anyone would ever qualify for one!

Thanks

user1977

RealGem said:

sheramber said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like if you USE THE SERVICE straight away, you lose the right to the cooling off period (and also the refund!)

So what is the use of a Cooling off period if you use the service and don't like it?

It is to avoid you logging  on, find a swap then cancel without paying for the service

Thanks but in what circumstances would someone get a refund? 

Because I can't see how anyone would ever qualify for one!

Possibly none in this case. There are lots of exceptions to cooling-off periods, but something where you immediately get access to a service is generally going to be one of them. The point of a cooling-off period is just to change your mind about signing up to something, not to let you try out the service and get a refund if you don't like it.

CSI_Yorkshire

RealGem said:

sheramber said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like if you USE THE SERVICE straight away, you lose the right to the cooling off period (and also the refund!)

So what is the use of a Cooling off period if you use the service and don't like it?

It is to avoid you logging  on, find a swap then cancel without paying for the service

Thanks but in what circumstances would someone get a refund? 

Because I can't see how anyone would ever qualify for one!

Thanks

As user1977 says, it's quite common in 'digital' services that there isn't really a cooling-off period.  The alternative would be that they don't allow you to log in until after the end of the cooling off period (to give you chance to change your mind), but I don't think you'd like that option.

diggingdude

Why would you not expect to pay something to use a service that costs money to run? If you signed up but never logged in you could probably cancel