A complaint by Purplebricks about arch rival Emoov is not being taken any further by the advertising watchdog.
The complaint was about Emoov’s latest advert which describes it as being “rated the UK’s number one hybrid estate agent”.
The advert includes on-screen text at the bottom of the screen stating “winner of AllAgents best Hybrid Estate Agents 2015, 2016 and 2017”.
Emoov boss Russell Quirk told EYE yesterday that the first he knew that Purplebricks was unhappy with the advert was when he heard from Purplebricks marketing director Ed Hughes.
Quirk said that Hughes told him that Purplebricks regarded themselves as “number one hybrid agent” and did not take kindly to Emoov’s claim.
However, Quirk said that the advert had been approved by the broadcasting authority Clearcast, and that the claims made in it had been fully authenticated.
Purplebricks, which is in dispute with allAgents over its own reviews on the site, went on to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority about the Emoov advert.
However, it has now been told by the Advertising Standards Authority that Emoov has not broken any advertising rules.
Quirk himself has been told of the complaint by the ASA, which has advised him: “We do not require you to take any action.”
Yesterday evening, Quirk said he had been amazed by the complaint.
“With Purplebricks’ own track record at the Advertising Standards Authority, you’d have thought they’d be the very last people to try this on,” he said.
“It’s playground bullying. Talk about pots and kettles.”
Comments (66)
Above, ducky states
“I subsequently found that both the claims about portaljuggling and PurpleBricks’ conversion rate were a load of nonsense.”
Thankfully for the British public, the following list don’t share the same opinion as your ‘findings’:
Rightmove
Zoopla
NAEA
TPOs
NTSEAT
PRS
to name but a few of the most important and influential.
It also received extensive, positive (in terms of the exposure of the illegality of the act), media coverage in most of the ‘dailys’, and of course specialist publications and websites such as Financial Times, City AM and Private Eye.
In fact, if we play your new game, we see that “Portaljuggling” (with and without hashtag, one word or two) scores a pretty impressive “About 3605” results on a rummage4 search, and is listed on some pretty high-profile pages. That’s more than everyone on your list combined, innit?
If only Messrs. May, Wood and “annoying anonymous troll” me could dream to aspire to such dizzy heights of media exposure…
To watch the double D’s waffle on lately is truly exasperating. The amount of effluent spouted is just too much to keep correcting and arguing with.
And this petulant post count theatrics? Really, do get over yourselves. If I want to post 100,000 comments about how utterly misleading, untrue, unprofessional and complete **** your chosen religion of a certain colour is I will.
It’s very easy to stride into a thread, drop a stupid/inflammatory comment and leave, which is exactly what you both do. Daily, without fail.
I wonder if emoov are as willing to point out to the general public that they entered into a significant advertising deal with allagents back in 2014, making them their largest commercial partner. I wonder if the public would view this rather cynically, or as nothing more than a coincidence?
http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/allagents-defends-rising-presence-online-agents-site/
Just an observation but if PIE were to adopt the Daily Mail remit of ” keep them angry” keep them frightened” then they need do no more than headline Purple bricks or online in multiple articles.
The volume of comments with either in the title dwarfs every other article combined. They even have their own trolls.
My feeling is that the PB model should not be a difficult one to shoot down by traditional agents. So more time spent shooting it down maybe a more productive use of time.
Would anyone here pay a painter in advance to paint their home and A) Hope they turn up and B) Hope they do a good job. No of course not. So why would you pay PB in advance to sell your home?
I think a lot of agents are overthinking this. Purple Bricks is cheap and the service reflects the price. You get what you pay for and sadly that can be absolutely nothing in almost half of cases. Shout it from the rooftops guys.
Incidentally, I am not a agent just a frustrated reader of PB articles and the responses.
‘They even have their own trolls‘. Guess who down voted your post?
I’ve said it before, the industry gives them too much credit for they are still a pimple on the face as far as the big picture. Do your job right and communicate and they are not a threat. They have so much “bad” in their closets for you to use with little effort. Use it against them, as they use the very limited “fee” argument against you. Todays story is yet another PB nail for the arsenal.
Woodentop
On the way to a take on today, a few miles away, I drove through what is regarded locally as a very deprived area, with three bedroom houses little more than £100,000. I have never seen so many of their boards in one place.
I just wonder if this is the market of lower priced properties that is being specifically targeted?
To answer your 316 post (lol) my 263 reply … it wouldn’t suprise me, as it is the market where it can be argued they have limited budget and may view a low budget agent is preferable (so they think) ….. oh … that means they could be paying for a service that if it doesn’t sell, they can’t afford to loose the money and end up having to pay a proper agent who will offer a free service if it doesn’t sell (more chance of selling than the other crowd limited service/outlet) and guess what many agents will be charging them around the same fee or less than the budget agent with all thier add on’s! Case in point for a decade we charged a flat no sale = no fee of £750 plus vat for these clients.
Many of these people will also be ‘First Time Vendors’ with no previous experience of Full Service Agency…so maybe the adverts, without easily noticed warnings about being charged whether they sell or not, hit home particularly with this audience!
BSOS23PC
Listen, these Hybrid/ Online agents have to do this type of marketing otherwise they wouldn’t get any business! They cannot say ‘No.2 Hybrid Agent’ it just wouldn’t work.
The problem is, that the type of marketing they need to do, is already expensive and over the years will become more expensive as more of these type of agents use the marketing companies.
To me, working in the industry for 25-30 years, I cannot see how the business model works/ can be profitable for a Hybrid agent, which explains the high amount of investors money constantly.
There is another 1 million reasons also but I really want to make a star in the snow. Any how , it is quite interesting to watch this circus act of so called ‘Estate Agents’ rise to fame, which unfortunately for them will only come crashing down.
The crashing down part is purely when the investors realize that the business model doesn’t work.
It is good news to know that any winner of our awards can proudly use it on their marketing material knowing it has been passed by ASA.
The allAgents awards scheme is now the UK’s largest and most coveted awards within the industry for the following reasons:
Every agents and staff member listed on our website is automatically entered into the annual event free of charge.
As allAgents fund the awards as this ensures no agent can win simply due to their ability to pay
Its only customer experiences that can influence who wins our awards and more importantly for full transparency of results, all reviews and ratings are published online for all to see.
Our 2018 allAgents people awards close on the 30th April. There is still time for staff members to ask customers to rate their experience and come away with one of these sought after awards
Good luck everyone
allAgents
Yet Allagents who state they are independent and impartial, troll social media to canvass Purplebricks clients who have had negative experiences and then ask to post a review on your site.
Yet you fail to do this for any other agent!
Your worthless awards are just that, and any consumer on the high street would have no idea what they are.
Dom
Do us all a favour and go away. You are more one eyed than Nelson!
I hope he doesn’t go away without telling us all what his obsession with PB is all about. He doesn’t work for them, he doesn’t own shares (by his own admission). He has used them ONCE and had a good experience. When I have a great experience with a restaurant I post a positive review on TripAdvisor, what I don’t do is troll other TripAdvisor posters or search social media for negative comments and obsessively rebut them based on MY enjoyable visit. Why the heck would I? Do tell Dom.
Hear! Hear! Property Pundit.
Come on, he works for PB as a LPE. You know one of those failed high street negs?
You may hide behind your anonymous account and throw insults at me as i couldn’t care less.
Yes i have sold through them and i am just to instruct them on another property. Yes i have invested in shares in them in which i drop in and out.
Yes i defend them and I’m quite happy to do so.
Anyhow i have work for the rest of the day and perhaps you guys instead of crying and ******** should do some.
Got some snow shovelling booked in Dom?
He’s probably got to go out and put a few PB boards back up that have blown over in the wind.
You may hide behind your anonymous account and throw insults at me as i couldn’t care less.
Oh dear I seem to have hit a nerve (pun intended), so who is “dompritch134” ? and your post today to ArthurHouse02, and your usual insults to others .. the list is long. You do shoot yourself in the foot.
Anyhow i have work for the rest of the day and perhaps you guys instead of crying and ******** should do some.
Temper, temper. If you can’t take the heat, don’t stand in the glasshouse on a forum. My money is still on you being a LPE. You are too determined and single minded in defence of a company that has so many failing, to be just Joe Public.
I agree with you Woodentop.
Remember he boasted about attending PB’s conference?
I do and more than once he has made comment over the year, that only from within can know about. Joe Public wouldn’t have a clue. You know what they say, the more you say, the more chance you will be found out and he keeps preaching to those with considerable experience within the industry for decades. Either that he makes it all up, with posturing.
Wasn’t going to post today because I spend far too much time posting on here but after Property Pundit talking about dompritch134’s obsession I thought I’d draw up a little league table in terms of how many PurpleBricks posts certain individuals have commented on.
Produced via a google search of the PIE site with usernames that I recognise as regular posters and the term purplebricks added:
Here’s the obsession league table:
PeeBee
563
Robert May
375
AgentV
314
Woodentop
259
AgencyInsider
215
Chris Wood
208
Bless You
190
Thomas Flowers
161
cyberduck46
148
Property Pundit
88
dompritch134
66
So PropertyPundit higher than dompritch134.
How about all those on the list agree never to post again? The only reason I post is because of what I consider misleading statements by traditional agents obsessed with PurpleBricks.
Blimey mate, have I had to correct you and your mate that many times. Haven’t you got it by now, you don’t know what your talking about. PB to warrant so many posts … they must be doing something seriously wrong for us to highlight, not just once or twice!!!!!
Is this the best you can come up with today. Again doesn’t bring anything to the table that is of any use to anyone but your own ego to have to post.
My check reveals post I have made, not just PB. Quote from your list my post “It was considered that 1 in 3 sales was a viable business. For every three listed one would sell, one would be waiting for a buyer and one would fall off the cliff.” Nothing to do with PB. At least today and each week I have produced useful information on several PIE threads for agents to consider that may help them that are not PB related. What have you ever contributed = ZERO.
Thanks for the heads-up of how much time you and Dom have endugled us with you pleasures to support PB (you both post on nothing else) and taking into account our posts may not be talking about PB …. . you both have had a lot to say on a single subject.
You table is out of date … 260
Can you recognise who on that list is retired with too much time on his hands? Time that could be spent clearing neighbour’s paths or volunteering at the local food bank or homeless shelter. Sad.
>My check reveals post I have made, not just PB
No Woodentop, the 259 number is posts that have the term “purplebricks” in them. You appear on 1030 PIE pages in total so approximately 26% of your posts are related to purplebricks. Just admit it you and the other traditional agents/cronies are obsessed with PurpleBricks.
>What have you ever contributed = ZERO.
I have corrected both PIE articles and many posts from traditional agents. Without my contribution there would have been no alternative opinion from purplebricks customers (apart from dompritch134), just complete bias and much misleading information from traditional agents and their cronies which was the case for a long time before I first contributed.
Sorry wrong again Ducky. I did the same exercise with PB and many posts were not talking directly about PB, many were about you and dom! But as I have named PB, total now 261 which ever way you want to look at it, PB or correcting you … again.
Wasn’t going to post today because I spend far too much time posting on here … But you did! and wasn’t of any use but your ego.
cyberduck46
Without my contribution there would have been no alternative opinion from purplebricks customers (apart from dompritch134)
But why post on here?
No other vendors that have used High Street Agents come on here consistantly to defend Full Service Agency (even my 5 star google review people wouldn’t)….and I wouldn’t expect them to.
As it is an industry site, for discussion between those in the industry, it would surely be just a waste of people’s time!
Equaly those customers who have had a very bad experience with the Call Centre Listers and have said so on Trustpilot, don’t come on here to argue with your duo!
Saddest exercise I’ve had to witness. Can’t unsee it, can’t unthink how empty one’s life would have to be to do it. Tragic.
Just a couple of minutes work and nice to show how obsessed traditional agents are with PurpleBricks:0
Property Pundit, the first step towards cure is recognising you have a problem.
Or how obsessed you are! = 262. Please note, no mention of purple bricks, lol. AgentV now 315 and he didn’t mention PB
first step towards cure is recognising you have a problem. Mirror, mirror on the wall …
The league table doesn’t factor in the false positives where my name and others names have been used by other posters.
It doesn’t factor in that I have been posting on this subject a lot longer than most
The other thing to consider a lot of my posts on stories about Purplebricks aren’t about Purplebricks but defending myself against your obsessive trolling and Dom’s aggression.
Could you come back to us with a corrected table to see if anyone here cares at all?
that post isn’t me saying anything against Purplebricks
Nor was that or this one
Robert,
The first step towards cure for your obsession is recognition of it.
You spend so much time pretending you aren’t obsessed it’s hilarious. “It’s not about one company”, then what do we get? A report from Jefferies on PurpleBricks when it was supposed to include Foxtons, Connells & Countrywide.
cyberduck46
But when you know that whatever you say, we will not change our opinion of companies that have only been designed to make more money for their already well off owners, rather than provide a fully comprehensive ‘completion’ service……wouldn’t your time be better used by volunteering for a charity or something.
You could do some real good, and make new friends at the same time.
I have been a member of quite a few organisations in my time that do lots of charitable work, and it is a great way of getting out, socialising and meeting people…..and all for a good cause!
I can’t be bothered to check but I do reckon that 214 out of my 215 were to simply say that a particular PB story would, within minutes, inevitably attract the contributions of you, ducky, and the equally pointless dom. Please don’t thank me for the free publicity; the pleasure was/is all mine.
AgentV,
I don’t need you to plan my time thank you. I don’t tell you what to do instead of posting on here and I’m sure you could do something more constructive with the vast amount of time (commenting on 314 PurpleBricks posts – that’s about 5 times more than dompritch134).
I actually have a full schedule which does have gaps in it. I actively manage my own investments and SIPP (pension) which includes managing 3 investment properties which admittedly aren’t much work but I have to pretty much be on call. I play golf 3 times a week when my health and the weather allows.
I spend a lot of time on my computer looking after my small SIPP (pension) and other investments in shares so posts on here are just in-between important things which I can’t leave for too long because of the nature of the investments.
>whatever you say, we will not change our opinion
I’ve said it many times now, so please pay attention. I don’t post for the benefit of regular posters like yourself but to add balance should anybody else come along to read what is being said. There are far more views than comments and some of these people might have an open mind 🙂
Before I first posted there was no opinion from PurpleBricks customers just competitors of PurpleBricks. All saying the same thing every time a new article was posted. Much of it biased, misleading and based on ignorance even of how the company works.
cyberduck46
But only other agents ever read what is posted on this site, and the vast majority of them will not agree with what you say because it is bias the opposite way to them…their bias is towards service at a fair price, yours is towards companies making more money.
No average member of the public is ever going to read anything that is ever posted on this industry site, and you should be grateful for that. If the average member of public did come on here, they would be a lot more educated about the Call Centre Listers and a lot less people would be tempted to use them!
BSOS23PC
The Purple Crusader, tell us, is your obsession just with PB or do you trawl other sites putting the world to rights?
In my many years as a business owner i have had one or 2 pretty crappy accountants, this is where I don’t understand you, I don’t feel the need to trawl accountancy industry websites slating the profession…It’s well, kind of weird!
Can you not accept there are some good agents out there…this tarring with the same brush, well even you know there are bad apples and good apples in every profession.
Look, all I would say is if you have some investment properties, you probably have contact with local estate agents, ask one of them to sit on a sales chase where PB are involved…Believe me it’s a nightmare, surely you are not that blinkered that you truly believe that PB are this wonderful outstanding company…All the bad publicity is all make believe is it?
As I say, all i can suggest is go out there and find out for yourself, you are lucky, you don’t have to work with this shower of s**t week in week out!
>No average member of the public is ever going to read anything that is ever posted on this industry site, and you should be grateful for that.
I disagree. Ever heard of search engines?
And why should I be grateful?
When I owned shares in PurpleBricks I came across this site when another investor (not in PurpleBricks) pointed out what was being said about portaljuggling. What I discovered were very worrying claims as I thought there would be a major scandel. This soon followed by Chris Wood trying to charge me $500 an hour when I was questioning him about claims that PurpleBricks’ listing to completion conversion rate was 14% (or was it 17% I can never remember).
I subsequently found that both the claims about portaljuggling and PurpleBricks’ conversion rate were a load of nonsense.
Hopefully not all traditional agents are taken in by such nonsense but there are clearly quite a few who are. So hopefully my posts have benefitted more open minded agents too.
The good traditional agents see PB for exactly what they are, the bad traditional agents see themselves in a mirror
Gee – I’m on a list!
Fanks for that, ducky.
So – my ‘obsession’ score of 563 is pretty impressive, I take it?
How’s about this little list then – (credit:Rummage4.com)
PeeBee + Rightmove – “about 1200” (give or take another couple thousand, I would have thought…)
PeeBee + Zoopla – “about 838” (again plus a 5h!t-pile more…)
PeeBee + NAEA – “about 292”. (Rest of the time I must have used my “usual” term for them…)
PeeBee + OTM – “about 634” (B0110cks – I did that many in the first fortnight – we’re three years into the saga now!)
PeeBee + Agents Mutual – “about 359”. (Plus give or take 15 million down the other pub before Frau Renshaw’s change of tenancy brought us all here.)
PeeBee + OnTheMarket – “about 1020”
PeeBee + allagents – “about 330”. (I have other names for this company. Best if you don’t go there…)
PeeBee + emoov – “about 275” (Plus a canny chunk more if you include “The Quirkster”, “Russy-Boy” and a few other carefully-chosen names that didn’t bu99er up the EYE’s hairtrigger smut-filter.)
PeeBee + Mealham – “about 286” (That one is a surprise – I was expecting well over 1000…)
PeeBee + Springett – “about 181” (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)
PeeBee + woodentop – “about 465” (all good, of course…)
PeeBee + customers – “about 727”
PeeBee + TPO – “about 1650”
PeeBee + ducky/cyberduck/cyberthrush – “about 204” ( NOT EVEN CLOSE! I fink I musta broked rummage4 – sorry, Mr May! I’ll stop there…)
So, ducky – I guess my obsessions are a wee bit… well…
…obsessive.
(264) And you have time to go to the pub!
cyberduck46
I just put PB’s full name in google…..it was bottom of page three before an article on PIE popped up about them….like I said no average member of the public is ever going to read anything that is ever posted on this industry site!
So I think you are wasting a lot of your time. As for claims about portal juggling and completion rates, well I have a lot of insight from working in the same town as their head office. I would love to post some of the things I know, but I fear reprisals…. so I don’t.
I believe their website was created to allow ‘For Sale By Owner’ and the local listers were added as a late afterthought, when it became apparent Rightmove would not allow a FSBO offering to market properties on the site. So its a mish mash of things that were never properly thought out to do a great job on service.
Its an Ikea self service style restaurant trying to claim it gives the same kind of quality and service as a Jamie Oliver one. You can’t pay someone less than a labour day rate that a plumber charges to swop your boiler….and expect them to do a great job presenting, marketing and selling your house. They will do the bare necessity in order to move onto the next ‘day rate’….unless of course they are happy to work as a ‘slave’.
The marketing from day one has set out to do nothing more than gain as many customers as possible, whatever it took, even if much of it has clearly been misleading…..that didn’t matter…as long as you get the ‘punters’ in…like a betting site or Wonga or a combination of the two. But what you do get over time by doing this is a critical mass of unhappy clients who start making their voices heard, and I think that is what is starting to happen now.
So keep on and on and on as much as you like…..and invest as much as you want to in shares. But know this, I am one of the good guys and even if it would bring me millions in wealth I would not want to be in charge of this company anymore than I would want to run Wonga!
BSOS23PC
I don’t believe they do live in this country anymore .. gone to the USA?
AGENT DEFINITION:
‘A person or thing that takes an active role or produces a specified effect’.
Probably why ASA threw PB’s complaint out?
HYBRID DEFINITION:
‘A thing made by combining two different elements’.
That will be charging for failure and charging conditional deferred payment fees of £360?
Love it.
I wish they would stop using hybrid for on-liner only agents. They are not, it is the high street agents that are doing both jobs.
Another story for the tedious dom & ducky duo to come and troll. Stand by folks, they’ll be along any time now… Yaaaaaaaaawn.
When I heard the latest PB ad on the radio (LBC) the other day giving the listener the distinct impression that PB offer their services for free (the “no commission” chestnut), I nearly choked on my snowflakes, I mean, cornflakes. Another one for the ASA methinks.
I still come accross people who think some Call Centre Lister companies don’t charge for selling…. they think it’s a free internet service that makes money from advertising and cross selling other products.
As long as this marketing continues, some people will continueto be deceived… and as long as the Call Centre Listers can get away with it, with no action taken, they will!
It’s just misleading and cynical marketing!!!
Do you have an email to share agent v ?
Not with you thanks, only with fellow independent agents that work hard to do the very best for the vendor clients that use them.
Dom
You can have mine. MickyMouseCallCentreIdiot@pinkblockwork.cheat
NewsBoy
Priceless!
Or have I got to pay up front…just to send an email?
Yup, we have a lot of clients in our area and nearly all have mentioned about the free internet advertising from Purple*ricks.
I hear that one too and wait for the disclaimer at the end informing listerners that a fee is paid regardless of sale. It’s never there. It should be.
Got to love Purplebricks, it must be a right barrel of laughs in their HQ, looking at who they are going to send solicitors letters to next etc. Maybe they need to get their own house in order before moaning about others. Wonder how the escalation of the ASA investigation into Purplebricks is going?
Ah yes another anonymous coward who spends hours on twitter barraging the customer eservice rep for PB which is bordering on harassment.
Perhaps it would be better if you actually worried about your own business or job and you might find some fulfilment in life.
The same would apply to you Dom, maybe you should worry more about what you do rather than other people commenting on PB. My business is doing really well thank you, but i appreciate your concern and advice.
‘As a vendor you can accept an offer using the app without chain checking and negotiate without an LPEs help. The LPE or post sales team can the verify the chain on the clients request‘.
Just a reminder of what Dom actually wrote on twitter yesterday.
And that’s not what PB latest adverts says .. implies the LPE does it all. No they don’t.
Seriously? Haha wow, tells us all we need to know about the troll king.
Time you grow up.
The ASA commented:
We have sorted the matter out internally and thanked the online market for increasing our workload by 1000% since the #fake industry started.
p.s. Hybrid means better and quicker…. online agents shoudnt be allowed to use the word ‘hybrid’
Thats like a 3 legged leopard saying he is a hybrid because he is lighter….
bles you alll on this snowy day.
You’ve got to hand it to this lot, if there’s one thing they’re not short of it’s claims and other people’s money, please give it a rest and just do some work