Having heard good things about Smart Caution throughout the years I have been living in Geneva, and only needing a guarantee for one month of rent (unlike the usual 3) on a good Geneva salary, I was not worried when my landlady asked me to pay my deposit through them. However my experience with them has been nothing short of awful, and despite having never written anything like this online, their rudeness has compelled me to share my experience with other expats who may be considering using SmartCaution's services. 

I put in my request online and made the payment as requested which they took. I then received an email asking for a number of documents that they would need to issue the guarantee. These included a copy of my rental contract, details of my landlady, letter from the OCPM stating I had no outstanding debts and three salary slips. In short all the documents most regies require when renting. I had all of these except the 3 salary slips, since I had only just started a new job and before this I was a student and intern. Instead I asked if I could send my work contract which has my salary (which demonstrates I could comfortably afford the rent) which they said would be fine. I therefore promptly sent the documents they had requested expecting everything to be fine. I then received a very blunt and short email from a lady called Karine (I will not say her surname as I feel this would be a little unfair) saying they would not issue me with a guarantee with absolutely no explanation why. When I enquired about this she said it was because my landlady does not live in Switzerland. However my landlady does live in Switzerland - it is only that she also has apartments in the UK and Italy. When I explained this and offered to provide proof of her residency she once again sent an abrupt short email back saying that my contract was only 8 months and that they would still not issue the guarantee. Once again, I asked why, given that if I had provided 3 payslips, my contract dates would not have been known and that in any case the nature of the work environment in Geneva is such that short term contracts are not uncommon. Moreover, I know people on short term contracts (being paid less than I am and with a shorter term) who have been approved. I therefore politely asked if I could be put in touch with a manager to resolve the issue - I once again received a short abrupt response saying she was the manager and she would still not issue the guarantee and that I should look elsewhere. 

I feel like I need to be clear here - whilst a little annoying (thankfully I have an understanding landlady!), it is not that I was not given the guarantee that annoys me - although I find it impossible to believe that they have not provided guarantees for numerous people on short term contracts, given that you ONLY request 3 payslip - it was the blatant rudeness and poor customer service in Karine's responses. I was polite and accommodating in my emails to Karine and in response her emails were limited to one or two very short sentence with little or no explanation as to what the barriers to my application were (and even this was only when prompted). Considering my payment had already been taken I would have expected much better customer service and perhaps even an apology for the inconvenience this had caused me. I would certainly NOT recommend Smart Caution to anyone - there are other providers out there (I.e SwissCaution) who treat their paying customers with a little more respect than Karine showed me.