seems like a recent policy - based on your reviews, you might have screened for NYC VIP back in february of this year? but i literally have a text chain w/ AL as of last thursday where they spell out they won’t provide references when i tried to screen for NYC VIP and if i’m reading OP’s posts in this thread correctly, he faced the same problem... except they were willing to screen for PE and CCP, just not NYC VIP.
i could frankly care less about any back-end issues between houses, just don’t like being bullshitted. AL said it was an issue with a former client that they vouched for and that going forward they won’t be doing any references. instead, it seems like petty competition with one but not other agencies.