I engaged Foxtons to sell my property while I was advertising it privately in the web. They knew about this and did not care when they were trying to convince me to give them the job.
After they spent months of lying to me about the value of my property, the interest in it, their registered buyers, their marketing efforts to sell it and many other things, they only achieved a low price that I had to accept as I was getting desperate to sell it.
At the end of it I complained about all these things and retained their
payment until I got a satisfactory explanation and compensation if pertinent. In retaliation, they sued me for their fee plus an increased
commission for my engaging "Internet Estate Agents" too, which they said meant that they were not sole agents but joint agents without agreeing to it. In the end they had to withdraw this ridiculous claim.
The moral of the story is, if you use Foxtons and pay what they want they will send you all these young sales people wearing smart clothes and greasy hair, with wide smiles. If you dare to complain, they will send you their solicitors.