Purplebricks has apologised to a customer who posted a highly critical review on Trustpilot.
“Annette J” wrote that she was posting the review “as a last resort”, before contacting the Ombudsman.
In her catalogue of woes, she said that her first contact, with a territory owner, did not last long as he left shortly after valuing her property, in Anglesey.
A second Local Property Expert, from some distance away, suggested that the property was over-valued and should be reduced by £20,000.
This LPE also left. A third LPE then advised a further price reduction, of £10,000.
The owner subsequently found that their five-bedroom, two-storey house was being advertised as a bungalow on Rightmove.
The seller was then apparently told she would be introduced to yet another LPE, but she said she wanted to remove her property from Purplebricks.
‘Annette J’ said in her review that she felt let down and disappointed, and asked for Purplebricks to respond within 48 hours.
She also said that she had been advised by LPEs who weren’t local: “Not one person that I have spoken to or had involvement with have even been local to Anglesey.”
The seller also said she would be reporting the matter to “the property eye” – although the seller has not in fact approached us.
The review remains up, on a site which specifically looks at poor reviews for Purplebricks. It does not include those reviews with the much higher ratings for which Purplebricks is known.
Last night a spokesperson for Purplebricks told us: “All Purplebricks customers should get a great service and we’re really sorry that this wasn’t the case here.
“We have spoken to the customer to apologise and have now resolved the issue.”
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/purplebricks.co.uk?languages=en&stars=1&stars=2
Comments (27)
Great story…96% satisfaction whilst generating over £200k per day / £6 million + per month.
On the 03rd July their shares will fly north so the sensible option would be Buy..Buy…Buy
Bye Bye
Lets all hold hands, bow our heads and pray to the Purple Brick.
I foresee a Purple sky with great wealth.
Lots of love and kisses,
The Prophet Sdaltaf
So if they don’t ‘fly North’ on 3 July, will you do one from this forum?
Pay peanuts – get monkeys
…”pay peanuts get monkeys” *
(*Disclaimer: Monkeys are not guaranteed, irrespective of the full amount of peanuts paid. Additional services are available but will attract an additional peanut sum. PB accepts no liability for the performance of monkeys and in the event that no sale is agreed, All peanuts paid at the outset of the client’s contractual period, remain non-refundable)
Eyereaderturnedposter12
“Monkeys are not guaranteed…”
They are when a PB article is concerned.
Irrefutable proof below.
Cyberduck46.
To achieve the PB balance you yearn for, run along and update the PB website to include 1, 2 & 3 star reviews and not just the 4 & 5 star reviews; there’s a good chap.
While we are on the subject of fair, is it a fair and balanced view for PB to continue to pretend that…“…our U.S. and Australia offices continue to grow rapidly”
They have managed to update their Australian website, but not the U.S. one… I wonder why?
From the U.S. FAQ’s
We were founded in the U.K. in 2014. Since then, we’ve expanded to Australia (2016) and to the U.S. (2017) and Canada (2018). Currently, we’re selling more houses than any other real estate brokerage in the UK, and our U.S. and Australia offices continue to grow rapidly.
From the AUS FAQ’s
Why is Purplebricks leaving Australia?
After much consideration, we have made the difficult decision to close the Australian business. We’ve been operating here for two and half years and, unfortunately, we have been unable to make the progress in the Australian market that we’ve wanted.
With market conditions becoming increasingly challenging, we do not believe that the prospective returns in Australia are enough to justify continued investment.
Fair & Balanced – that is all you ask. May we expect the same?
The irony is not lost that the original LPE being accused of overvaluing has gone from the frying pan into the fire
Leaving Bricks to join Easy Property
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-wyn-jones-bsc-hons-mhbf-a74235121/?originalSubdomain=uk
Also enjoyed his hour of fame on Homes Under The Hammer.Annette no doubt feeling that way too
Save £2,000 in agents fees and lose at least £30,000 in your sale price. What a great deal. Mind you, it is probably still a much better deal than hanging onto worthless PB shares.
To be honest the story sounds a bit far fetched.
The lady claims she spoke to 4 other agents but chose purplebricks. Are you really going to reduce your price by £30,000 because you’ve paid £900 to one agent.
Just list with one of the other fantastic local agents if they valued at £30,000 more than PurpleBricks suggested she reduce her asking price to.
Why did you drop your price when selling by 100k? Should have given it to a local agent.
Check the link, Loads of unsatisfied customers. Not long before they close up.
Not surprising the link shows unsatisfied customers it is a link to those that have posted 2 star reviews 🙂
Of course 96% of reviews are either “excellent” or “great” with just 3% poor or bad.
To give a bit of balance have a read of the 5 star reviews https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/purplebricks.co.uk?languages=en&stars=5
When are you going to stop defending these idiots. As far as the other “96% of 5 star” we all know that’s absolute fantasy and you know it. Tick tock
I am not defending them I am putting things in perspective. Listing just 2 star reviews is clearly not right but I don’t see anybody else pointing that out. I wonder why?
inthefield, when are you going to start criticising traditional agents? Alls sorts of issues and there are enough articles on here and I don’t see you commenting on them.
A decent day for PB yesterday according to my proxy. 278 listings. 237 on the same day last year. Looking to be about 11% down compared to last year for the month but things improving by the looks of it. Do your own research.
LOL. Yes you are defending PB as if we don’t all know from your history of postings on EYE. You are always going on about high street agents being bad and never mention there are good ones. You manipulate your postings as an attack as “all are bad” and in the same breath defend PB when found wanting by spinning it around to mostly good. Please don’t make any further posts on a subject you do not know.
Cyberduck46: 16.01hrs 14th May 2019
“The fact I don’t have any experience of being an Estate Agent is irrelevant”
I now know who the Duck is, it’s that bloke that’s always in the pub, who knows everything, an expert on everything but not qualified or experienced enough to know anything.
It currently stands at 3% because the majority of bad reviews get taken down if the customer doesn’t verify their details.
You don’t have an unbiased view like you claim.
you are completely on PB side.
Any of your posts are not worth their credibility anymore
Truspilot have stated that PB flag up as many positive reviews for verification which is in line with their terms & conditions.
The results will be slightly skewed but not to the extent portrayed by the likes of PeeBee in his tweets which only ever refer to one star reviews. (that is based on the last time I liooked which was a long time back).
Most of the 1 star reviews I see on TP for purplebricks could equally be applied to agents I’ve used. The idea that people don’t know they pay whether they sell or not is ridiculous. Only idiots wouldn’t realise this. You click on either “pay now” or “pay in 10 months or when the hose sells”. There’s no other way forwards other than clicking one of those 2 options (or there wasn’t when I signed up).
Also you have to approve the advert before it go’s live so the fact that this lady is complaining her property is advertised as a bungalow suggests she was happy with it in my eyes.
Most comments on here are based on little understanding of how PurpleBricks work and seem to be taken from 1* reviews on TrustPilot.
That’s my final comment. Other things to do.
Before you go, you fail to make it clear that over 2 star ratings and most infact are entered at time of instruction, not during “the service” offered and that is when they get the 1 star hits.
Bye then.
Other things to do.. you do make me laugh. yet your following Purplebricks activity and posting on Trust pilot, Twitter, LSE, PIE… when you were just a customer? give it a rest Cyberduck.
‘The idea that people don’t know they pay whether they sell or not is ridiculous. Only idiots wouldn’t realise this.’
There speaks a man who has clearly had very few dealings with the general public.
Reading this whole thread is like listening to black cab drivers talking about Uber. It’s obviously misleading to post a link to just one and two star ratings, but most people here seem to think that’s fine. No prizes for guessing why.
“It’s obviously misleading to post a link to just one and two star ratings…”
In exactly the same way that it’s obviously misleading of them to post only 4- and 5-star ratings on their company website:
purplebricks.co.uk/reviews
For those that can’t be chewed to look – eighteen reviews displayed – SIXTEEN of them (up to a day old) are 5-star, the other two four-stars chucked in for good measure.
The PurpleEmperors proudly display these fine clothes:
trustpilot.com/reviews/5cf14efaa843690720656249, which was posted at 4.57 this afternoon, and this one
trustpilot.com/reviews/5cf1547ea84369072065657e , posted at 5.21 – but not this one
trustpilot.com/reviews/5cf15059a84369072065631b , which was posted slap bang in the middle of the other two at 5.03.
Funny, that…
…but of course you’re just as blinkered, biased and keen to spin your single-dimensional *********** (credit: Jonnie) as ducky, Prophet’n’Loss and the Purple fanboy also-rans that try to keep pace with them.
I’ll leave the last words to you, ml66uk – “No prizes for guessing why.”
“blinkered, biased and keen to spin [my] single-dimensional ***********” Yeah, you sound rational and well-balanced.
It isn’t ideal, but I’d almost expect a company to filter for positive reviews on their website, and PB do provide links to see every single review on TrustPilot or FeeFo. It seems odd for this article to link to one and two star reviews though, when they could have linked to the review that prompted the article, or to all reviews, which show the following:
TrustPilot: 5*: 89% , 4*: 7%, 3*: 1%, 2*: 1%, 1*: 2%
Feefo: 5*: 2,068, 4*: 270, 3*: 76, 2*: 41, 1*: 59
fwiw, I have no connection with PurpleBricks – never used them or even thought about using them, whereas it’s hard to imagine that most of the people here slagging off cyberduck46 aren’t estate agents. I only stumbled across this article while googling spammy TrustPilot reviews that are promoting dodgy recovery companies (having been caught up in the Lendy debacle).
Ahhh… so you’re a Trustpilot #Fanboy then. Explains much.
“it’s hard to imagine that most of the people here slagging off cyberduck46 aren’t estate agents.”
Awww… you worked that all out for yourself? That a website titled Property Industry Eye… stuffed full of property industry news… would potentially have a lot of people working in the property industry reading it and commenting on it – and that they will come to the defence of the industry when challenged by outsiders with agendas that ceased to be hidden many, many moons ago.
Give yourself one mahoosive pat on the back. You can hand the pencils out on Monday.
Good news – you’ll not find many – if any – Estate Agents commenting on recovery company sites. We stick to what we know.
” …….. it’s hard to imagine that most of the people here slagging off cyberduck46 aren’t estate agents. I only stumbled across this article while googling spammy TrustPilot reviews that are promoting dodgy recovery companies …”
Try and put it another way….. I don’t know the history of Cyberduck46 on a property forum principally used by those in the property industry (includes estate agents) or that agents might just be defending themselves from the relentless anti-agent prejudice, sometimes personal attacks on individuals by this cyber troll.
Yes, you jumped in with two big feet. As is the norm today with social media posters, just have to have your say!
Now read the article heading again that was being discussed: Purplebricks says sorry to house seller who posted damning review on Trustpilot
1) I’m anything but a TrustPilot fanboy, and they have real questions to answer about why so many negative reviews of Lendy were apparently deleted not long before they went into administration. Trustpilot have a terrible rating (85% 1* !) on their own site btw.
2) It hadn’t escaped my attention what kind of website this is, and that most of the readers and commenters will probably be estate agents. It still seems wrong for them to have posted a link to just 1* and 2* reviews rather than a link to the actual review that prompted the article, or a link to all reviews, and everyone having a go at cyberduck seemed to be protesting a little too much. I have no idea what s/he has posted on other articles, but his/her posts here seem very reasonable, unlike many of the responses.
I have no idea what s/he has posted on other articles, but his/her posts here seem very reasonable, unlike many of the responses. Here ended the lesson of not knowing what you are talking about, but you had to have your say. Two big feet got even bigger. The link has been previously posted on EYE some weeks back and was shocking allegations by the PB customer who on reading it seemed they nearly had driven her to become suicidal. And of course you will know all about the legal attempt (fact and published) by PB to silence bad reviews.
If you want a balance: Read June 1, 2019 at 19.38 below.