Visum Review
If you've researched us before using us you might have found some bad reviews. You might have also noticed they all follow a similar pattern: 'Visum took my money and won't refund it...'. See here for a representative example of these reviews dotted through our normal good reviews. The link will open in a new tab or window:
http://www.reviewcentre.com/Estate-Agents-and-Letting-Agents/Visum-www-visum-co-uk-reviews_1391517
Because of the lack of face-to-face interaction, online services attract would be fraudsters and scammers like bees to honey. Our customers' confidence in the legitimacy of our business is very important and consequently we take our responsibilities, both legal and ethical, with the utmost seriousness.
With rental properties especially there is a risk of fraud from imposter landlords collecting and keeping deposits and rent down payments from multiple interested parties. Even with the widespread knowledge of scam techniques the fraudsters can still fool people by approaching an agent and getting their adverts listed on reputable sites like Zoopla and Rightmove.
This risk means we must take steps to positively identify that the person trying to list a property with us is who they say they are has the right to instruct us to list the property. We make it clear from before a user even creates a listing that they will be required to provide ID, but unfortunately we still get people trying their luck doing such things as providing fake IDs, or not providing any ID at all and then making threats about what action they will take if we don't reinstate their listing.
We could just turn a blind eye to this and put these listings on - it would be easier for us and would also eliminate the negative reviews. The people exposed to these scams are unlikely ever to be our paying customers, but we have a moral obligation not to facilitate dishonesty, and we have to take any negativity that comes with it squarely on the chin.