Reviews site allAgents is lifting its restrictions on Purplebricks reviewers and allowing them to post reviews without the need to provide documented evidence.
allAgents has been involved in a long-running battle with Purplebricks after the online agent claimed the negative reviews published on the website were either fake or could not be substantiated.
allAgents first dropped the Purplebricks Profile page altogether after Purplebricks threatened legal action.
allAgents subsequently tried to raise £50,000 in crowdfunding to pay for its legal costs, but fell short.
At the end of 2017, allAgents then reinstated the Purplebricks page together with certain reviews.
Purplebricks countered by saying it had never sought nor had any commercial agreement with allAgents “and we have no desire to work with them in the future as we have no confidence in the veracity, robustness and transparency of its service”.
allAgents has since apparently been researching all reviews to ensure they are from bona fide customers.
At the start of the weekend, allAgents displayed 165 reviews of allAgents, with those posted this year all being one-star.
This weekend, Martin McKenzie of allAgents said: “In addition to new reviews, we went back in retrospect to all reviewers and demanded proof that they were genuine customers.
“This was a very time-consuming process; however, we are glad that we did so as it reaffirmed our position that the majority of the negative reviews disputed were genuine and thus halted the legal action.”
McKenzie added: ‘’With over 15,000 listed firms, no other agent gets this special treatment and we simply can’t afford to spend additional resources continuing with this.
“Furthermore, we are scaring reviewers off with all these demands.
‘’We hope that as 18 months has now passed, Purplebricks will have matured enough to allow us to continue to moderate their reviews without fear of litigation and report or use our ‘right to reply’ feature on each review just like every other listed agent.”
Purplebricks said it would not be commenting.
Comments (10)
With the service they provide, how can they hope to ever get more than one star?
Purplebricks claims can not be backed up. They are failing miserably just like Michael Bruce’s other businesses that went into administration where he was a director. Maybe his personal assets he purchased with investors money can help repay their investment? Axel Springer was taken for a 125M GBP (3.60 share price) Bruce brother special and not sure they will just sit on the sidelines. Time to grab more popcorn and continue to watch the Purplebricks show!
How does the phrase go, ‘all publicity is good publicity’? Doesn’t seem to apply with this outfit any more.
“This was a very time-consuming process; however, we are glad that we did so as it reaffirmed our position that the majority of the negative reviews disputed were genuine and thus halted the legal action.”
The point is PB tried to silence the truth. The second point is, now those that post genuine negative reviews will be seen by the public and not ones manipulated by any interfering company who provide poor service.
“and we have no desire to work with them in the future as we have no confidence in the veracity, robustness and transparency of its service”.
And PB are using a site that only allows people selected by Purplebricks to write a review? Pot and kettle.
What’s of concern and slightly justifies pb’s claim is a comment like “the majority of negative posts were genuine” also the mention of 15000 agents, if like the old days, do they know you have them as a member and are they happy about it and furthermore, if not, are they able to contact you, very much like the old days if they can’t, unless to “contact us” you need to post a review then you contact us to check it’s genuine!!
PB are certainly a strange company. They bang on and on about transparency, yet don not want anyone to know what goes on in the their company, how many people actually move home via them or how much they really charge.
If you were proud of your company wouldnt you want the world to know how well you run, how positively colleagues or former employees speak of you.
As with the AllAgents situation, some people may think PB have something to hide.
Like most bullies, they back down when challenged. Will be interesting to see how the whistleblower in the other pubs #purp story today gets on. Brave man, I wish him all the best.
Whats the other story Chris?
No one should fear litigation from Purplebricks. To my knowledge they have only ever threatened but never actually issued proceedings.