Januarys

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Another estate agent disrecommended by Rachael. There are fewer things on this page than the Haart page because we've had fewer dealings with Januarys.

I phoned them to ask to view a property they were marketing, and they insisted on taking far more details from me than other agents do in this situation. They kept asking about the sale of our flat and how that's going, and giving me the really hard sell to try and make me switch to them, and I kept having to steer the subject back and ask whether they were actually going to let me make an appointment to view the property I'd phoned up to view. They were so aggressive and so uncooperative in not letting the conversation go the way I as a customer wanted that I decided I didn't want to deal with them in future if I could avoid it.

After we eventually succeeded in making an appointment, and viewed the place, they didn't phone up to get feedback like they said they would, but they did phone a week or so later to get feedback on the house I'd viewed in Trumpington. (I never viewed any house in Trumpington.)

Today they phoned up again and grilled me about how our sale was going and were trying to get me to switch agents, but I said I wasn't interested. (I didn't say "if we switch it won't be to you"; perhaps I should have.) So they said they had some properties we might be interested in. I said I check the web every day and if there are any we're interested in we'll see them (IME, if agents are actually sending you stuff rather than you looking on the website, you get a load of things you don't want and none of the things you do). So she offered to delete me from their system so that I wouldn't get these marketing calls. I was about to say "OK" but then I said "hang on, if you delete me, does that mean if I want to view another of your properties in the future I'll have to spend all that time on the phone giving you all my details again?"
"Yes."
"Right. Probably the simplest solution is for me not to view any properties you're marketing in future."
"That's a very odd decision!"
"If the choice is between getting unwanted marketing calls and having to repeatedly give all my details every time I want to view a property, then I don't want to do either."

Oh, and they have terrible SEO. A Google search for Januarys or even Januarys 01223 doesn't find their website (at least, not in the first few pages of results). (It finds Januarys Commercial Property Consultants & Chartered Surveyors instead, who may or may not be part of the same company, but don't have an obvious link from their site to the residential agents' one.) I told them this and they said "yeah, you have to search for Januarys Countrywide." Obviously.

We just got a letter from them, to "The Home Owner" (presumably having seen the For Sale sign), soliciting for business, (which Tylers have told us is against the estate agents' code of practice). The SPaG is appalling. Some choice quotes:

"we receive on average 13 new buyers across E Mail from other offices, all these people are looking to buy in the local area, again an outside agent cannot receive these buyers..."
13 per what? 13 new buyers ever?
Oh no, surely not "E Mail"? Gasp.
What's an outside agent? The rest of the letter is comparing them against local agents, not outside ones.
Not to mention the comma splices...

"All out staff will visit your house, its easier to sell them when they see them"
So these all-out staff are really keen, then? Or if they mean "all our staff", do they mean from all 1000 offices? And is it their staff we're supposed to be selling?

"Local agents will simply not get the buyers from out of town and when 40% of all Cambridge properties sell to buyers from outside Cambridgeshire. It is a fact..."
When, indeed.

They're sending us lots of junk mail, always two identical pieces at a time. I phoned and asked them to stop, and told them we're registered with the MailingPreferenceService? so they're not supposed to send us stuff. They said they'd stop, but they're still doing it. --Rachael

Multiple instances of month 1 in the Gregorian calendar.

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