Rightmove is set to face a possible legal challenge into its hiking of fees.
Ian Wilson, CEO of The Property Franchise Group – one of Rightmove’s biggest customers – is instructing its lawyers Cubism Law (www.cubismlaw.com) to refer Rightmove to the Competition and Markets Authority for alleged abuse of a dominant market position.
The decision follows a meeting he had with Rightmove on Tuesday, when next year’s rate rises were discussed.
Wilson said: “I told Rightmove that it should be reducing its rates, because it delivered fewer leads in 2018 than 2017.
“I took one of our franchisees to the meeting, because franchisees have criticised me in the past for not being robust enough with Rightmove.
“The franchisee trades two of our brands, Martin & Co and CJ Hole, across two towns. He is on all three portals and was able to prove that Rightmove delivers the most expensive leads.
“Their response was that it could raise rates ‘because we’re worth it’.
“The franchisee walked out of the meeting.”
Wilson said he had told Rightmove at the meeting that they would be hearing from his lawyer, and that it was illegal for a company to abuse a dominant market position to raise rates when its cost base had not gone up.
The current TPFG Group contract with Rightmove runs out at the end of this year, and Wilson said that he will not be renewing it.
Individual franchisees, who are their own separate business entities, make their own decisions.
However, Wilson said he will also be advising them that depending on the local market, a combination of OnTheMarket, Zoopla and pay-per-click would represent better value than continuing with a Rightmove subscription.
Wilson said: “If a business owner is bullied and cajoled by a supplier which has more than a 30% market share (and Rightmove claims in its own promotional material it has 90% market share) into agreeing to price rises which the supplier cannot justify in terms of increased costs, or extra value for that customer, or the customer is forced to buy products that they do not want or use, then there is a case for the CMA to investigate.
“The CMA can direct that the supplier reduces prices and there may be a basis for customers to bring a claim for backdated damages. Our lawyers are already handling three cases, and have told me that the CMA is currently particularly interested in online suppliers.”
A spokesperson for Rightmove yesterday evening said they did not know of the possible legal challenge, but said: “We’re currently completing the retirement of our legacy Gold and Premium packages and replacing them with the current three packages: Essential, Enhanced and Optimiser.”
Comments (103)
101 comments – Bingo!
The corporates get the discount..
I have heard Hunters pay £650 for RM and Z. Can any Hunters Franchisees confirm this is true?
I heard it was 300 per branch for RM
Agents should stop moaning and keep paying like mugs.
Or leave the monster they created.
We have been off Rightmove since the start of the year and can honestly say our bottom line for Y/E is looking it will be about 20% more than 2017.
Agents hold the cards, take your stock and put it on a portal and or let’s all create a non profit making listing site owned and run by estate agents.
So looking at all the comments (there are currently 85) and roughly the rightmove subscription is £1000 give or take, if you all gave notice that’s £85k hole in rightmoves monthly accounts straight away. (£1.02m annually).
As recently had a family member sell, they couldn’t have cared less about rightmove, they had been on previously with a corporate who were on the portals, but failed to deliver, this time round when they tried in a better market they were only interested in who would ACTUALLY sell the property. This was eventually done by someone local, with board presence who was recommended and sold it. I personally think too much emphasis is given to portals, a vast majority of purchasers and sellers only use it to search for a property (or agents looking to see what their competitors are up to).
Hi everyone. I’m about to ( depending on what comments I recieve on here ) embark on my Right Move journey. I represent a large builder in Spain looking to enter the UK market. I contacted Right Move and spoke to one Rep. Here style is very casual which I don’t mind. But the thing that holds me back is the fact that she makes me feel that we would be lucky if they chose us, that if she choses us she’ll give us a free trial period that’s only for special clients selected by her. Plus it’s hard to get the price out of her. Hard to get her to lay her proposal out on the table…obviusly not being dumb , I know it’s a long sell technique. I need to sell houses and Right Move can do that but what am I missing ?
Why not use an agent who will do all the work for you as well as being visible on both RM & Z (and maybe even OTM). You would pay nothing to RM an be absolutely certain of what the agent would charge per property making your budgeting and decision making a simpler process. I would be happy to volunteer
Mr Rayner
Please, PLEASE, understand one thing.
RIGHTMOVE CAN NOT AND DOES NOT “SELL” HOUSES.
It is a digital shop window. Nothing else
RM tell me I am paying the same as everyone else (yeah right). I’m a one branch office, no lettings (anymore) and paying £850 PCM on the ‘essential’ package.
£760 PCM (+VAT) per branch on two branches. Not for long as they have my notice. Never done any bells and whistles, was always pretty sure it was nonsense. Amazed at how many still are though, all petrified at the thought of another agent gaining an advantage over them
We’re paying £600+vat on a single office. Hiked from £540+vat
£1405 + VAT up from £1174 + VAT – an increase of just shy of 19% for the same single office package we had in place. Was happy at last rate- could not understand any justification of new price.
Because you have been loyal, you are only getting a 19% increase on your rate.
£900 for sales only essential package
This is more even than the rate card I have dated March 18…when did you sign up to this?
£1150 + vat sales and lettings essential 1 branch
Again, this is more even than the rate card I have dated March 18…when did you sign up to this? It sounds like they are eeking up the rates several times within the same 12 months.
Time to talk to your rep
£1050 + VAT Sales & Lettings essential, one branch
Unless I’ve missed him with this deluge of collective discontentment, no comment here from Robert May.
How is Rummage4 coming along Robert? Can you hearten those all set to jump ship with something firm to land on?
My concern about joining OTM is it could breed Greedy Pigs, akin to RM – can anyone reassure me?
As for ‘A day of action’ – little point. Must quit all together and confine what was once an admirable estate agents tool to history.
As you have asked we are in the count down to launch, that means very long hours and lots of time on the telephone and in meetings
I have not commented on here because rather than waste money on barristers who don’t need any more cash I would rather Ian spent it on a trial of Rummage4 to show that rather than a landing Rightmove with a bit of a fine they won’t have any difficulty paying it would be better to compete them off their high horse.
Thank you Robert. I and scores of others are eager to support your brave venture.
l
Thank you! Please get in touch. For now we are using Twitter as a cost effective means to update snippets of news.
Why do we all hate RM? It’s not just because they are expensive. I don’t hate Apple nor does my Mrs hate Louis Vuitton. Both brands charge much more than their competitors but we continue to follow their products and be their loyal customers.
It must come down to their ruthless price increases then? Perhaps, but surely as business owners we all aim to increase our charges as time marches on?
Is it their attitude? My account manager has always been super useful, approachable and knowledgeable. Maybe I just got lucky.
I am not a RM fanboy by any stretch. I have reduced my membership across the multiple brands and offices I look after and have seen no visible difference.
So, why DO we all hate RM? Is it just in our make-up that we would hate any successful portal? We pretty much killed off OTM didn’t we? Personally, I would rather RM continue to exist so that my lazy competitors see it as their lifeboat. I know this is harsh but lazy agency is dead and the more agents that realise that, the harder my job becomes.
Rightmove, you were meant to bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness….
Simple, we overpay and feel undervalued.
No other industry I know of exports their profits to a single supplier like us. They are a supplier who we have allowed to become so powerful that they believe we as an industry cannot function without them. It’s pointless trying to haggle with them, Ian Wilson needs to just pull out as do some of the others, Connells etc. It’s all they understand. Seven months without rightmove and I can confirm I am doing perfectly well with Zoopla and OTM giving me a couple of leads a week for free.
On a brighter note their share price is down over 10% in the last week.
I am with Zoopla…getting plenty of views but 0 leads…I find the service a bit too basic…interested in your views
I too had a challenging conversation at the begining of the year when our fees went up i pointed out that in terms of value for money and leads provided Zoopla was by far and away the better value for money site and that if we dropped Rightmove id wouldnt impact too greatly upon our business other that the publics request to advertise on the site i was met with , well lets say a like it or lump it attitude as someone that works for a TPFG company i for one welcome this stance.
Lets wait and see.
It seems to me that if sales agents want to send a message to RM then, once checking there is no penalty for leaving for one month and returning the next, leave for the month of December, and return ………. you may decide not to?
Remember Remember the 5th of November…..
Hands up who on here has a ‘microsite’? OK, now tell me why and show me proof they actually do anything positive for you. I see towns where not a single agent has them and then other places where multiple agencies have them. Please don’t tell me you feel under pressure you might miss out by not having one. If they were any good, surely zoopla & OTM would offer something similar?
As someone mentioned above we all have to email a compliant to the CMA.
I raised a formal complaint about abuse over two years ago but I lack the clout of one of the big boys.
Now that someone has raised the issue legally then there is power in numbers.
I would ask you all to spend 5 minutes on the CMA site raising the same official complaint.
Hopefully they will eventually get the message.
Here’s what I would do, but it would only work if everyone does it.
Is it that hard to speak to all your competitors in your town to arrange collective action? One lead agent in most towns could do this rather quickly.
Pick a date, say November 1st. Write to all your vendors saying you, along with all your competitors, are de-listing all properties from rightmove for a period of one week. Explain why you’re doing it, and explain that if RM keep hiking costs, then it will be too hard for agents to stay in business. Quote the 70+% profit margin they make, and then state that agents currently are only breaking even. Remind them that buyers can still see their property through all your other channels.
Then, most importantly, hold your nerve and press the button. There is always the chance that one agent in your town will bottle it – don’t let it be you, and once one agent does it, the rest in your town will follow.
Great idea add further clout by informing all the newspapers who I am sure will give good coverage as they would love to get agents back on board advertising with them
Totally agree, this round of RM prices rises are significant with more to come next year apparently. Our offices would gladly support some form of action.
One key thought I had and think we could make a difference.—
probably most of our offices have more rightmove advertising in our windows than OTM / Zoopla etc. It’s us that probably advertises Righmove more than anyone and keeps them in the public eye.
Take down all Right move stickers etc from our office windows etc and we stop promoting them and giving them zillions of free advertising and stop telling the public we think rightmove is no1 in the market?
Good point! Don’t moan about them while giving them immense FREE advertising in High Street locations, brochures/stationery and press ads. Talk about leeches. In fact, take all FREE advertising down unless it directly promotes YOUR company.
As a consumer I could not give a monkeys whether a property on a portal is an ‘essential’ ‘enhanced’ or whatever style of listing.
Initially I am only going to look at main picture, price, and location. Nothing else matters unless those three items immediately tick my boxes.
I feel at least 40-50% of agents in each Town/City need to come together to discuss the potential migration. If a single agent goes at it alone in one particular place then our competitors are going to be educating their leads “XYZ estate agents are not on right move, we are and if you want your property sold then you need to be”.
I know if I was the only one switching off locally this would be used against me, especially by corporate robotics. BUT if I can counter that argument by saying at least 40-50% of agents locally have decided that there are better quality leads coming from other sources then we stand half a chance.
We don’t need everybody but do need a percentage with a good mixture of larger and smaller independents. Add somebody like TPFG and it gains more credibility. We should start by revealing our locations here. We might just find that we have 2/3/4 contacts locally to get under way! FYI I’m in Chester 🙂
We are on Optimiser and have been for several years, we gave them notice to reduce to basic package. I negotiated 3 times with them and have now agreed to pay pretty much what I was paying before… and not much different from the essential package. I got the impression that they want to keep as many on Optimiser to save face. In my years of dealing with RM, I have never been able to negotiate a better rate… cracks appearing?
We have just spent the last three months trying to reduce our package down from enhanced to essential and kept being put off by the rm rep saying “you wish us to make you invisible on rm” “no one will see you on the essential package” so we are now paying £1050 a month to be invisible on there site!!??? must be invisible as we receive very few enquiries at present. The sooner we have the b@lls to leave the better
Good luck £1500 per office is bordering on criminal.
Organise a mass exodus…Hit RM in the pocket as much for arrogance as anything!
We went back to essentials package across all our branches, our business has not been affected at all, to be honest it’s gone up. Half the money we saved we reinvested into staffing and more marketing. If there is a crowd fund to help with this legal bill, I’m in. Rightmove treat agents like pure dirt on their shoe. Price hikes every year and if an agent can’t afford them then tough. RM have told us in the past when an image with a watermark on that didn’t conform, if we didn’t remove it that day they would take all our properties off, yet when they have a problem it takes over a week to get them to answer. The greediest portal in the world needs bringing down a peg or two. Without agents’ stock they would be nothing.
Does it need lawyers to make a case to ask the CMA to investigate ?
Presumably we can all write to the CMA to ask them to look in to their dominant pricing and if enough of us do it, they might just wake up and look at it.
I think the majority of RM users will wish Mr Wilson well with his campaign and if he or our industry bodies let us know what we can do to help, he will see a lot of support.
I seem to have woken up in a dystopian world where agencies are being forced to use Rightmove by some cruel overlord.
Prices = what the market is willing to pay for it.
Result: people complaining about the price, while still paying it.
It’s quite funny really. At one end there’s an industry up in arms (tenants) who are complaining about unfair fees, insurance being resold at 2x what the agency paid, admin fees of hundreds of pounds, referencing resold to landlords at 5x market rate. The response from agencies: “we need to make money, please don’t ban our fees”.
Then at the other end, agencies are complaining about Rightmove charging unfair fees, and raising their prices.
What a great start to the day. We’re all screwed.
Difference is a fair living. No agent obtains 78p in every pound received as profit.
I have problem paying RM, I have no problem them making a profit.
For £1500 (or however much you’re paying Rightmove), could you find a better equivilent cheaper?Probably not. So then it doesn’t really matter what they charge, because it’s still below market value. It will continue to rise until they maximise profit.
Their CEO/board has a legal duty to maximise profits.
Unless agencies believe that lettings isn’t an open market, and should be regulated? In which case, goodbye 90% of agencies.
I’m sympathetic because I hate paying Rightmove too, but I don’t see an alternative, and as OTM has shown, Rightmove is irreplaceable right now.
The only reason RM is irreplaceable is the fact other agents love to stick a knife in other agents back.
RM do not sell my properties or bring me listings. BUT if my staff are out listing a property and we are the bravest (stupidest) agent in town walking away from RM other agents will use it against my staff and my market share will dwindle.
This is why RM has over grown their dominance, this is why they can cancel contracts and insist upon 10% price hikes per year and and say take it or leave it.
If agents could act together decide locally not even nationally to walk away from RM they will drop their prices.
I am guessing this franchise lot are up in arms as they have been paying circa £100 per branch per month for the last 10 years. I am guessing they are finally being brought more inline with the £1500 per branch we pay, sayign that bet they still get a sizable reduction! – Why is it fair to have differing pricing at all?
I’ve never once had a tenant complain about my fees. Not once. I know of no agent that likes Rightmove and their modus operandi. If you are breeding resentment amongst your tenants by overcharging them that is a different matter to a market leader abusing its position.
Not sure I see the point in switching off for a day, you’ve still paid them. I think the current landscape in the market coupled with their price hikes will simply force some to quit and that may well domino others when they see no change to those businesses. Collective action is really required, but sadly agents don’t have a great history of that. Look at the split over OTM.
Collective apathy is all that we seem capable of.
Don’t wait until boxing day. Let’s bring the fight to them whilst it’s fresh. October 15th should be RM blackout day. Even if it’s just a symbolic half a day. Show them that we are capable of acting in unison.
Rightmove declared their ‘independence’ from agents by mandatory turning off the old overnight data feed on 4th July 2016 which enabled them to offer ‘instant’ alerts thereby, further driving applicants away from direct agent approaches.
So as GPL suggested 5th of November would appear to be a good reciprocal date for a tactical response.
By charging small agents considerably more per listing than the no service on-line only brigade and with circa 10% plus price rises per annum has RM played a large part in any desperate attempt by some agents in Burnham to protect the viability of their businesses?
As I have said before, is it anti-competitive to allow no service agents who charge regardless of completion, to prop up their accumulated loss-making businesses with 10s of millions of other peoples money, over many years, whilst also paying a ‘must have’ service provider considerably less per listing?
Perhaps, RM is adding fuel to the fire with this ‘Dominant Market Position’?
If you agree, contact CMA on the number provided in this CMA caption below or email them by 5th November 2018?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cemTusT9ufs
The Master said, “If your conduct is determined solely by considerations of profit you will arouse great resentment.” ― Confucius
It is important to understand that the public, our consumers, expectation is in the majority of cases to have their property listed on Rightmove. That expectation stops right there. It is the agents desire to have the competitive edge that Rightmove prey on and thus promote their range of enhanced products, leaving the agent to sell their wares directly to the consumer, and instilling the notion that they are of huge benefit.
By discounting the core package price to almost force agents into taking the enhanced packages may have worked in the past but ‘times are a changing’ and with it comes a mood for change and the realisation that in reality the ‘knobs and whistles’ are a smoke screen to Rightmove profits at the agents expense. Now is clearly the time to make a stand. If Rightmove want to sell these enhanced products then its time to restructure their pricing. If not- perhaps all agents should consider the basic package as perfectly sufficient.
Lets not forget Confucius!
Why not turn all properties off on Boxing Day???
It is supposed to be their busiest day for views isn’t it?
Genius.
Not on RM. manage with OTM and Zoopla to maintain no. 1 spot. Turn them off town by town. If there’s nothing there to look at then buyers won’t look for long. An agent in my area has ditched them and is maintaining same levels of sales.
Let’s do this – blackout day, or even week! Early November onwards? Who’s in?
If Cor-bin can do it outside my local hospital,I think we can do it too!
It’s definitely something on this page all agents appear to agree with so surely collectively we can do something about the cost and arrogance of Rigthmove.
As a fairly small business we pay £1,500 per month. every time we try and downsize the “package” cost goes up. We will be fixing this soon but I hope if we all took a stance then surely we can make a difference.
Perhaps even sharing our costs and what nonsense we get for the cost on this forum we can gain some clarity.
When you try and unravel or get transparency in Rightmove costs they just throw in more “save 80% by spending a bit more on enhanced package”!
They are the most ridiculous and greedy cash cow business model I’ve seen for 40 years.
Is a collective “Day of Action/Rightmove Blackout” now a real possibility?
………..?
Let’s hope so!
I’m in 🙂
GPL Fancy leading a group of us and setting up a date?
5th November seems appropriate for a number of reasons SP
I think you need a couple of thousand to make it worth while doing it. I remember you knocked up a website for the OTM issues maybe do the same?
Happy to confirm i will be the first for a 24 hours “Lights Out” if you proceed.
Noted SP
If RM see a collective ‘Day of Action’, it will not be difficult for them to leave the listings on the site.
I would not expect RM to allow their customers to simply and collectively boycott their site for one day. They will leave the listings on and claim an error in their systems prevented deletions on that day.
The real change will occur when one of the big firms decide enough is enough or more agents move away from RM to see how this would affect their business !
The big firms, LSL, Connells, CW and a number of the franchises only pay £100 per month per office
I am guessing the property franchise group had this deal and RM have said “No more” and they are having to pay a figure close to us mortal beings!
Saying that i bet they still get a sizable discount.
TPFG – Are not doing this for the industry they are doing it as their franchise offering is no longer as attractive and will stop them recruiting.
I have been on Rightmove’s Basic Package from the day I joined.
Recently I had an issue with them and they unfairly took the “bully boy” approach on the basis that they were in charge.
I told them I was delisting my properties with immediate effect and would cancel my subscription unless they agreed to my request. I logged into rightmove plus and delisted every single property I had listed/displayed. Within an hour my problem was resolved.
At what stage will Our Industry act collectively? It’s not about “cartels”, it’s about subscribers being at the mercy of a dominant company/supplier who simply turns the profit screw annually.
I’m happy to back Ian Wilson and add my testimony of “unjustified annual increases by Rightmove because of their overly dominant market position”.
So many agents dropped to essential and despite the reps warning that the agents will suffer a dip in leads or business- this never happened . There is truth in the rumour that essential package to be dropped for all businesses except for new joiners with less than 15 listings.
Long overdue. Their arrogance is as astonishing as their vast profit margin. The latter st our industry’s expense. Zoopla and now slowly but surely, OTM, provide credible alternatives. RM are only dominant and the consumers first choice due to “our” ( industry’s ) stock being available. If it weren’t, RM would wither on the vine. Where else can they get revenue bar from us?
Typical arrogant reply by Rightmove that is!
‘We can because we’re worth it’
Their greed is killing Agents!!
Once again we pleaded with them yesterday not to increase our fee at the end of the month and got a similar answer by a disgustingly cocky account manager who couldn’t give a ****!!!!
Ouch18 “Their greed is killing Agents!!”
Yes – and no.
Looked at another way – their greed is killing THEMSELVES.
It’s just the longest… slowest… (so-far) least painful death on record.
Looking at them, you’d think they were in the peak of health.
We, in the meantime, are fuelling that health.
In 2015 (and many times before) I said, here on EYE “…the portals are animals. WE bred them: WE fed them: WE tickled their tummies and told everyone what clever animals they were…”
And so they became what they are today.
I went on to say (this was when OTM was launched) “…and now WE threaten to cut off their food and attention. Like any animal, they revert to wild instincts when the chips are down. Self preservation is the only acceptable result for them – survival of the fittest. You can’t be surprised – it’s written into every animal’s DNA…”
They will kick, bite, scratch and punch – but IF WE – their ONLY source of “food” – STARVE THEM, they can only wither and die.
Every Agent has a free choice.
#Your_Call
Cocky lot rightmove.
Clearly making hay whilst the sun shines.
My agency now gets more leads, phone calls and emails from OTM than RM. I’ve said here before – this is fact.
Our firms medium term plan is to leave RM.
We haven’t heard from a rep for 3+ years and leads have declined year on year. Lots of poor leads too which waste the time of my staff.
I’m not saying I’m going to leave right now, but I think a lot of independent agents are seriously thinking about it in the near future.
Cut back to basics with ZERO loss of leads (which were poor in any case).
“We’re currently completing the retirement of our legacy Gold and Premium packages and replacing them with the current three packages: Essential, Enhanced and Optimiser.”
Word on the street is that the RM price hike plan is an attempt to drive everybody towards the “Enhanced” package to make the essential package redundant in 2019/20. Therefore creating a minimum spend threshold of £1500 per branch!
I’d be keen to know how many other agents see no value in the Featured Listings, Featured Agent, Premium Display Listing, microsites and the valuation leads. What’s really interesting I have asked reps for years to provide figures for click through on FA, numbers for PDL and featured property, traffic and retention on microsites. They’ve never been forthcoming.
Who’s going down to “Essential” package only and dropping all the other products that for years we’ve been told we can’t live without – despite ever being any credible support of these claims?
#BackToEssential
And when you leave gold (which I did nearly 4 years ago) you never hear from the reps again…!
We’ve dropped to Essential package. Made precisely no difference to lead numbers or business won.
Us too. All that ‘featured’ and ‘premium’ malarkey makes not one jot of difference – other than clugging up the client search feed.
Hi Andrew,
I was surprised that I never got any tangible stats for any of the products I’ve had over the years. I was even more surprised when the rep told me that premium listings (which I have been paying for since they introduced them) “were not that effective anymore”.
Fancy that! I like how much they flog the microsites – which don’t feature on mobile!
This could well be the trigger for others to gain confidence in giving RM their notice. I’m in.
See below. I’m off ASAP.
I had a RM rep contact me a while ago, something about changed packages, and these new arrangements meant that there was price parity with new clients. I asked the rep does that mean I can leave one month and rejoin the next month on the same package at the same price, I thought leaving during historical slow periods would save some money, upon which she said yes. Although I have not been bothered to do this, maybe I should.
Estate agents tend to have a slower December, maybe collectively that is the time to show resolve and strength. Lettings, will likely have different peaks and troughs months.
Best double check with RM that it is still the case first.
I’ve got it on email from my rep that I can give notice and rejoin without penalty at same rate, I was just talking about a December break the other day!
Peter,
See my note above, we gave notice a few years ago, to allow for no advertising in December, with a view of returning in January.
On my return, we were given increased rates as we had lost the ‘Loyalty Discount’ so please get it confirmed from your rep in writing.
Since then, we paid a higher rate, but continued to drop December for a few years.
The Loyalty discount applied a while ago.
I agree that if anyone is planning to do this that they seek their own confirmation the rate will not increase when rejoining, although it makes me wonder how many firms will rejoin after a month’s absence now that they have taken that step.
WELL DONE PROPERTY FRANCHISE GROUP Let’s hope the momentum is building amongst all agents and not just on this board. Now its your turn Paul Smith SpicerHaart, Countrywide who need to cut costs, Connells etc etc
Look carefully at the stats your rep give you…ma leads is a misnomer. It only applies to the large corporates whose footprint covers large swathes of the UK. This was sold as a benefit to us until it was pointed out the leads were from areas we didn’t have offices within 50 miles. Slick presentation and FOMO. Everyone should pull and go to the essential, buyers still know where the portals are and will react to what they like the look of, especially if you are not over valuing!
Thats right Rightmove been doing this for years holding agents to ranson and increasing charges year on year! With poor leads substandard service! They have one interest and one interest only which is profit they do not care about agents especially single independants who cannot hold them to account and there voice will not get heard. They’re ripping us off the only way to stop this abusive and blatant disregard of our hard earned income. Is to go to the alternative companies then the power they have will soon diminish they will be begging us to come back offering 50% less to what they’re charging now trust me. We have used them from the very begining for last 18 years and fees increase every year now they want to charge us £2500 a month ok rightmove sure, dont make me laugh! Their directors are probably falling off their chairs now. This company makes net profit £144 million with £243.3 million revenue do you really think they care about anyone but themselves ! come on wake up smell the coffee. Its a costly cup let me tell you ! Thanks Wrongmove
‘Essential, Enhanced and Optimiser.’?
More like:
Pricey,
Push it a Bit More Pricey
and
Oops, we’ve really overcooked it and are about to get into Very Hot Water Pricey’
Any truth they have stopped offering the essential package ?
I can’t comment yet, as we are still negotiating with RM following a fractious meeting, similar to the one described in this article. However, don’t think it’s an idle rumour.
Excellent news. Hope they pursue it all the way
They will not be referred. Bet they ‘Reach an agreement’
Which, I suggest, will lead to further “agreements” being reached…
It’s not just cracks in #PurpleWalls that are being poked at – and widened – these days!
The why don’t you report them as well? If the CMA get reports from tens or hundreds of small agencies then they will need to do something. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-anti-competitive-or-market-issues-to-the-cma (I would report them but I am a landlord)
A number of us on here have mooted this belief before. Wonderful news that a major player such as Ian and PFG is going to stand up to the arrogance of Rightmove and test this with regulators who have teeth and are prepared to use them.
Precisely….some previous articles we’ve been commenting on such as those involving OnTheMarket, clearly show most agents are using Rightmove out of necessity rather than it being the perfect tool.
I truly hope OTM stick to the business plan and take down the risicridic powerhouse that is Rightmove. With the added bonus of the competitions watchdog warning/fining/preventing the outrageous price hikes
WMV97
“…clearly show most agents are using Rightmove out of necessity rather than it being the perfect tool.”
Perceived “necessity”.
Believed “necessity”.
Indoctrinated “necessity”.
Sheep-culture “necessity”.
We’re all guilty of the above.
You could just pull out?
Sorry as Pee Bee said “Necessity”
That said, have you had many sales enquiries?
Why not just use rightmove for lettings and then the other 2 for sales, then that way you are covered, just not the way rightmove expected.
Property Paddy,
We looked at doing this with RM – lettings only and this only reduced the package by around £200 ! When I explained this to my rep, I was told that I would lose the ‘loyalty’ discount ! I have been advertising with RM since the start and they talk about Loyalty !
I have never know a supplier of services to dictate business terms to their customers in such terms. They only have one objective, and it is not how best to serve their paying customers !
It is great to see the big guys standing up to RM, because they surely do not listen to small businesses such as mine !
Without repeating my previous posts, we have noticed a good uplift in leads generated from the combination of Z and OTM since moving from RM to Z.
I agree, loyalty goes both ways