Blinc Tenant Referencing Reviews 9

I had a very concerning experience with Blinc’s tenant referencing process.

As part of a standard rental application, I was asked to provide:

online banking login/ID to access bank statements

HMRC login details

National Insurance number

6 months of bank statements

3 months of payslips

credit check consent

proof of address

passport copy

While proof of ID, Right to Rent checks, payslips, and a credit check are normal in the UK, requesting online banking access and HMRC login credentials is not required under UK law and raises serious data-security and privacy concerns.

Under the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR, companies are required to collect only data that is necessary and proportionate. In typical UK letting practice:

bank statements (if requested at all) are usually limited to 3 months and can be redacted

income can be verified via payslips or employer references

tenants should never be asked to share banking or HMRC login credentials

The overall process felt far more intrusive than standard tenant referencing and made me uncomfortable about how sensitive personal data would be handled.

I would strongly encourage prospective tenants to understand their data-protection rights before proceeding and to question any request for account access or excessive financial history.

Extremely invasive and inflexible process. They reached out to the HR department of my company in the EU regarding salary and employment details despite my advising them that this would be against GDPR (and should be illegal anywhere). I had offered to arrange a reference on the other side of the holidays, but they ignored this. Very unprofessional.

Awful company asking for 6 months bank statement and link them
To your HMRC account I don’t f**king think so.
You would think I was applying for a mortgage not a bloody rental

The demands are incredibly onerous - but thats the wrold we live in. however the portal has bugs, documents cant be uploaded and blinc are slow to respond to meals and phone calls. zero respect for the customer's time. Very corporate feel and id seek to avoid this platform in future. I'm guaranteeing rent for my son. Im gogint o feeback to the Agent that this isnt fit for purpose. BD

This has been one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve ever had with a company. I applied to be a guarantor for my son, who has already been living at the property for six months. I provided every document requested—bank statements, payslips, P60, proof of right to remain, and passport—everything except my property deed, which I do not feel comfortable sharing with a company I know nothing about.

My mortgage details are clearly visible through my credit report and my bank statements, yet they’ve marked the check as “inconclusive.” This is particularly confusing considering the same process went through without any issues just six months ago.

Frankly, it’s easier to apply for a high-value loan or credit card than to go through this unnecessarily invasive and inconsistent process. If they can't complete a check based on standard financial documentation, the real fault lies with the agency for choosing to work with such an unprofessional provider.

Blinc has made me almost want to pull out of the referencing process several times. It seems like nobody in this company is able to talk to each other internally, as we were asked for the same documents multiple times. You'd be advised one thing by one person, and someone else would get back to you with the email template saying you need to complete the section after uploading the recommended documents. The admin was shocking - I received an email in all lowercase that didn't even address me by name. Many times my emails weren't responded to. They then wanted a WhatsApp video call to verify ID - not everyone uses this app? The whole process felt very unprofessional and frustrating.

Bunch of idiots this company is. Because they have not completed a sanction check on me despite me uploading all my documents two weeks ago my rental company will not release my rent to me. I’m now out of pocket. Please avoid

What a truely awful experience with this company. I have been in tears. They asked me for documents that I did not have and made it impossible for me to rent a property in an area I have lived in since birth. Apparently, I have no right to rent in a country I was born and raised in. Ridiculous pompous and unethical practices.